


that time i took requests on tumblr

by TheTriggeredHappy



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Drabbles, Multi, heed warnings on chapters, im not tagging all this shit ok?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2020-10-10 01:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 65
Words: 130,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20519987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/TheTriggeredHappy
Summary: (This is essentially just where I'm archiving various unrelated drabbles and requests that I get on tumblr for when that platform finally just straight up burns)





	1. Sniper/Scout, "That was kind of hot."

**Author's Note:**

> [[chapter titles will include the ship and prompt, with the actual request and any warnings as chapter summaries. posted in the order i received them or in a group with the prompt list they're from]]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: How about #18 for Speeding Bullet? Only if you want, of course!"  
hell yeah i want to, dude!!
> 
> (minor tw: canon-typical violence sort of stuff. nothing gratuitous, just worth mentioning. this is basically just pg-13)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #18: That was kind of hot.

The worst thing about the match being caught in a stalemate was the energy of it. Being trapped in that strange place between fighting and resting, between alertness and relative relaxation. The fact that it made the day drag on longer was no good, and the looming fear that any moment something would change and they would lose was also no fun, but really, the feeling of being a coiled spring just _waiting_ for the action to start back up, weapons all reloaded and wounds all patched and healed, knowing the if but waiting on the when, it was awful.

Sniper in particular was fairly irritated about them, mostly because generally during stalemates, he would be tormented by the enemy Spy, who seemed to get bored extremely quickly. That left Sniper with an additional layer of tension going on, with the only real measure he could take to try and not get backstabbed a few dozen times in a row to be changing nests fairly frequently, which left him only a little less frazzled.

He’d only just sat down in the barn that made up the outskirts of the current battlefield when he got lucky enough to hear the telltale sound of a dispersing cloak and a knife flipping open.

No. Absolutely not. The bastard had killed him _four times_ in the past twenty minutes. He would _not_ get a fifth.

In the space of a moment he’d leapt to his feet, seized his knife and spun around with a snarl, a vicious swing going a long way to make the Spy reel backwards and to buy Sniper a moment to get bearings on where he was and where he might move next.

The Spy’s next move was to back up and glance for the nearest door or window, but no, he would _not_ be getting away, not after being such a bastard. Sniper darted forward, feigning a swing at his kneecaps only to instead thrust upwards, knife sliding cleanly up into the Spy’s ribcage.

“Why don’t you go ahead and _stay_ dead for a while?” Sniper snarled, and yanked the knife out, and kicked him to the ground.

Relative silence for the three seconds it took for the Spy to stop struggling on the ground. Full silence for the five seconds it took before Respawn pulled the corpse away.

“That was kind of hot,” chirped a voice from up above him, and Sniper nearly had a heart attack.

He glanced up, and there, looking down at him, lying in the rafters that supported the loft with a hand propping up his chin and a grin on his face, was Scout.

“How the hell’d you get there?” Sniper asked, trying to shake off his alarm.

“I’ve _been_ up here, man. I was up here before you showed up and went all one-liner action hero. I was asleep.” Indeed there was a layer of laziness to the way Scout spoke and moved, usually reserved for shortly after the team woke up in the morning or for late, late at night.

Sniper exhaled, relaxing minutely, moving to wipe his knife off and pick back up his gun, glancing it over to see if it’d been damaged when he dropped it. “I’m not gonna ask why you were up napping in the rafters instead of out doing your job,” he said dryly.

“_What_ job?” Scout scoffed. “It’s a stalemate.”

“There’s still bastards that need killin’. That means you’ve still got a job to do,” Sniper said firmly.

“Yeah, plenty’s guys around to fight,” Scout said sarcastically. He pulled his pistol from the waistband of his pants, aiming it at make-believe enemies. “Pew, pew. Really givin’ me a workout. Pew, pew-pew. C’mon Snipes, I need backup here against all the just, the waves of guys attackin’ us right now.”

“I get it,” Sniper said flatly.

“Just the crazy amount of dudes currently attackin’ is that I’m supposed to be stoppin’. Because you told me to do my job.”

“I get it, Scout.”

“Just the absolutely bonkers number of totally real people I’m totally in combat with right exactly now, this like, action hero movie’s worth of enemies. With like, me being the protagonist. Just that many guys.”

“_Scout, I get it._”

“And you’re just like, sittin’ around lookin’ pretty while I’m doin’ all the work here. Shittiest love interest ever, in this, the movie where a bunch of guys attack us.”

Sniper shot Scout a glare, then went to start adjusting his scope.

“Hey, but y’know what’s weird, though?” Scout asked, voice perking up as he changed subjects abruptly.

“What?”

“How you always just like, glare at me or don’t respond when I say flirty stuff like that, instead’a tellin’ me to knock it off.”

Sniper turned his head to glare again, not speaking.

“I mean, sometimes you say stuff like “Oi, bugger, go away, I’m concentrating” or “Bloody hell, can this conversation wait, piss” or somethin’, but you never tell me to actually _stop_.” Scout tilted his head just to one side. “What’s that all about?”

“I don’t sound like that,” Sniper grumbled.

“See, even now when you’re all pissed off for some reason, you’re still not telling me to _quit_. You’re just changing the subject. I just thought that was kinda funny, y’know?”

“Hilarious,” Sniper drawled.

Scout sat up, and dropped down to hang from the rafter he’d been perched on, swinging once and dropping to the ground. For a brief moment Sniper was convinced he was about to watch Scout break both his legs, but Scout dropped into a roll and ended up back on his feet again, brushing hay from himself, otherwise unscathed.

And then he was walking up towards Sniper, crowding into his space. Sniper took a step back instinctively, and Scout took two forward. Sniper’s back collided with the wall, and then Scout was stood practically on his toes, looking up at him with that same curiosity, that same half-grin. Sniper’s pulse pounded in his ears.

“So what’s the deal, then?” Scout asked with a surprising amount of neutrality, eyes flickering to give him an up-and-down. “Is it that you’re… scared of me, or something? Is that it?”

“Of course not,” Sniper half-scoffed, glancing away, only to have his credibility instantly put into question as he jumped at the feeling of Scout fiddling with his vest’s zipper.

“Funny way of showin’ it,” Scout commented in turn.

“Look, this just isn’t something that…” Sniper managed to stamp down a shiver before it could roll through him at the feeling of Scout’s right hand moving from fiddling with his vest to instead slide to rest under it. “…That coworkers should _do_, particularly in our line of business.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” Scout pouted, nonetheless keeping his hand on Sniper’s waist, his left one moving to mess with the bullets Sniper kept stocked in his breast pocket.

“S’not that,” Sniper gritted out, looking away entirely to stare out over Scout’s shoulder, trying to ignore how nice all this contact felt. Admittedly, it wasn’t something that happened to him often outside the context of battle. “It’s just… not very professional.”

“So we keep this quiet,” Scout shrugged, tilting his head to try and goad Sniper into looking at him again. “I ain’t askin’ for some whole big thing, roses an’ chocolates an’ all that. Not unless you’re about that. I just wanted to… y’know, try somethin’ out. See if we’d work.”

“If we’d work?” Sniper echoed, eyebrows drawing together, still not quite able to meet Scout’s eyes.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty bored, talkin’ with you is almost always pretty fun, and you’re just pretty. Figured we could work somethin’ out. But then you went an’ started playin’ some game where you didn’t give me a straight answer or anythin’ to go on even though it was pretty damn clear I was hitting on you.”

Sniper’s jaw tightened.

Scout’s subtle motions stopped for a second, presumably as Scout considered him. “Look, I’m not gonna like, force the issue, here. You tell me you don’t want nothin’ to do with this, I’ll leave you alone. Won’t even be mad, just like, a little disappointed. Because I’m serious. Cards on the table? I really wanna try this. But this _definitely_ isn’t gonna work unless you show up voluntarily. So you tell me straight up, “Get away”, and I’ll walk away and I won’t ever bug you again like this. I’ll cut it out with the makin’ passes at you and we’ll both get outta here like none’a this ever happened. That’s all you’ve gotta say, is “Get away”. And I will.”

“Fine. Get—“ Sniper started, eyes locking on Scout’s again, only to pause.

Scout’s expression was something Sniper had never seen on him before. A bit serious, largely earnest. There was hope pretty clearly written across his features, and the whole pretense of smugness was gone. He wasn’t playing around, he was making a very honest, open offer.

Sniper’s breath caught in his throat. “Get…” he tried again, because he’d meant it, this wasn’t something coworkers should _do_. He was a professional, he had standards for himself, standards that pretty clearly meant not doing this sort of thing with any of his teammates. And besides that, Sniper really wasn’t in a position where he should be… dating, or whatever else Scout planned to propose. And he’d never even been any good at dating back in the past, and he wasn’t sure if he’d even enjoy it. But both of Scout’s hands had migrated to his waist beneath his vest, and stroked over his sides with a surprising and uncharacteristic gentleness. Like Scout was waiting for that second word. Like he was almost sure it was going to come, any moment, and Sniper’s voice caught.

Scout looked at him. He looked at Scout.

Then his eyes flicked up, and widened slightly.

In the space of a moment, he’d seized the pistol from Scout’s waistband, firing one, two three shots off towards the doorway. The first pinged off the wood, but the second two connected, one with an invisible chest, the other with an invisible forehead.

Scout half-turned, eyebrows raised, to regard the Spy that slumped to the ground just inside the barn, and the way it disappeared after a second. “Nice shot,” he commented, voice appraising. “How’d you catch that?”

“Saw the hay on the ground move,” Sniper replied, hands falling to tuck the pistol back where Scout put it, only to linger there for another few moments.

Scout hummed. Silence between them for a few seconds before Scout turned to look back at him again. He didn’t speak, just looked up at Sniper, displaying an amount of restraint just then.

Sniper finally let out a sigh, shoulders sagging, pulling Scout in a half-step closer. “Y’know what? To hell with it. Fine.”

Scout perked up immediately, lighting up like a firework show. “Really? You mean it?” he asked, his smile stretching across his face wide and unabashed.

“Yeah. Not like I’ve got any real reason to say no. You’re not so bad,” he managed to joke, his own face making a valiant attempt at a smile.

Scout laughed, and the pressure of his hands increased as he leaned into Sniper a bit, positively glowing. “Yeah. Not so bad.”


	2. Engineer/Spy, "Is that blood?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Number 30 napoleon complex? <3"  
yea dude!! these two are great! (established relationship, blood because… it’s part of the request)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #30: Is that blood?

There were quite a few things that you learned to get used to when living with eight other mercenaries of varying degrees of mental stability and proficiency in English and sobriety. The presence of firearms around every corner, the near-constant possibility that someone would get in an argument (or altercation) with someone else, a lingering and implacable odd smell that went beyond what buildings primarily housing men usually had.

And of course, there was often blood or property destruction present.

But there was one individual who preferred not to partake in the general mayhem the others tended to get into (outside of the arguments, on the basis of him being a complete bastard). So that did make the Engineer take pause.

Admittedly, Spy was playing it very cool. He was walking perfectly normally, at a regular speed, and Engie was preoccupied with making sure he didn’t spill any of the tools he was lugging to his workshop, fresh off of an attempt to talk to Medic about a potential dispenser redesign.

But he did catch it, out of the corner of his eye. It took a moment to process, but then he was stopping, turning, eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh, hey, Spy?” he called hesitantly.

Spy stopped, but didn’t turn. “Yes?” he asked evenly.

“Is that blood?”

He couldn’t be sure, because the blood he thought he’d seen was mostly on Spy’s face, and Spy still wasn’t turning. A beat of pause. “No, it’s not,” Spy said. His voice was still very even and controlled.

“I was just askin’ because it looked an awful lot like blood,” Engie said, shifting his gear a bit lower, starting to frown now. “And if it’s blood, I don’t think you’d try and hide it unless it was yours and you were embarrassed.”

“You are mistaken,” Spy replied easily. “I am fine, there’s no blood to speak of.”

“Awful rude to have a conversation with your back facin’ someone.”

There was a beat of pause.

Then Spy sighed. “This really isn’t worth starting something over, is it?” he asked, largely rhetorically. He turned around with a second, more dramatic sigh, and Engie got a chance to actually see his face, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Sheesh, what in Sam Hill happened to you?” he asked, taken aback by the wounds visible despite Spy’s mask covering much of his face. He already had an amount of swelling going on just above his eye, and his nose had apparently been bleeding at some point, as well as his lip being split, or maybe having been cut on his teeth.

“I’d rather not say,” he replied bitterly. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to the medical bay so I can continue with the rest of my day.”

“No good,” Engie said, shaking his head, hefting his tools again to readjust them. “I was just there. The Doc’s not in.”

Spy’s expression soured. “Of course. Wonderful. Perfect. _Merveilleux_. Just what I needed.”

Engie sighed, adjusting the load he was carrying once more before starting to walk again. “Alright, c’mon then,” he said simply.

There was a pause before he heard the sound of pristinely polished shoes clicking to follow him. “Might I ask why?”

“I’ll just set you up with a dispenser an’ get you cleaned up,” Engie replied. “I’m no doctor—not medically, at least—but I should at least be able to patch you up until the good doctor comes back around and can take a look at you, provided it’s that serious.”

“It is not. Nothing terrible. A small dose of healing vapor should be sufficient,” Spy answered.

In no time at all Engie was at the door of his workshop, inputting the code and stepping inside, Spy following close at his heels. Given their… arrangement, could they call it? Spy had long since gotten used to loitering in Engie’s workshop for spans of time. There wasn’t a particular pattern to Spy showing up, or how long he generally stayed (partially due, Engie suspected, to the man’s lingering paranoia that he earned from his profession), but he did show up relatively often.

Engie put down the dispenser and let it start setting itself up while he went to fetch one of the folding stools he had leaned up against a mostly-clear section of the wall. He brought it over to where the build was making some progress on itself and set it up, and Spy only looked a little exasperated at the thought of sitting on it before he complied, not without brushing it off first.

Engie sped along the process of building the dispenser, and it was only another moment before it was humming to life, releasing a steady stream of healing vapor into the air around it.

“Alright, now let’s get you cleaned up,” Engie said, moving to his workshop’s sink and getting some clean towels, starting to wet one. “Might as well, while I’ve still got you here.”

“I cannot help but feel you are enjoying this,” Spy hummed, the slightest tint of amusement in his tone.

“Maybe a bit,” Engie conceded, returning and looking over Spy’s face. “I reckon this might be a bit difficult with all that fabric in the way, y’know.”

Spy paused for a second, looking him over critically, before rolling his eyes and moving to pull his mask off. “Fine. I suppose the damage of you seeing my face has already been done,” he murmured.

There were a few more bruises on Spy’s face that had been hidden, but they were fading with every slow breath Spy took. He tilted the Frenchman’s chin up and set to work wiping away the blood that had started to dry over the lower half of his face, mostly from the nosebleed, with the wet cloth.

“Not too much blood, lucky for you,” Engie said quietly after a few moments of silence between them. He looked Spy in the eye long enough to flash him a smile. “I imagine you’d hate to get blood on the collar of your shirt.”

“I know how to get blood from my clothes, who exactly do you think I am?” Spy replied, the usual bite of his voice softened by the way an answering smile tried to pull at his face.

“Hold still, now,” Engie chided, finishing cleaning his lip, starting work on gently wiping at a smear that had gotten caught just above Spy’s eyebrow as he’d removed his mask. “Ought to be another minute or so before the swelling goes down. The vapor don’t do much for that.”

“I’m aware,” Spy said, scoffing but nevertheless staying still.

Engie put aside the wet cloth, moving to finish up with a dry one, and then he was done. “There. All cleaned up,” he declared, still holding Spy’s chin in his hand.

Spy hummed. They looked at each other for a moment. It was only then that Engie realized they were very close together.

He was just a man. He couldn’t resist the impulse. He leaned in and gave Spy a brief kiss.

Spy returned it without drama or fanfare. It only lasted a moment before they pulled back away again.

“Ow,” Spy mumbled, raising a hand to feel at his still-swollen lip.

“Oh. Sorry,” Engie apologized.

“Hm. Kiss me again and I’ll consider forgiving you,” Spy said, and Engie breathed a laugh, leaning back in to comply.

When he pulled back again, Spy looked rather pleased with himself.

“So. Care to tell me what happened to get you all mussed up in the first place?” Engie asked.

Spy’s expression promptly fell. He stewed for a moment. “One more, and maybe I’ll tell you,” Spy decided.

Admittedly, that did get Engie to laugh. The third kiss took a bit longer, with Spy tugging on one of the straps of his overalls to keep him in close when he tried to pull away.

They did need to breathe at some point, though, and Engie raises an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling you’re just tryin’ to get me to forget I asked you a question?” he mused.

Spy grinned, a sheepishness lying just under it. “Guilty as charged,” he acquiesced.

“So? What happened?” Engie prompted.

Spy groaned, burying his face in his hand. “I fell down the stairs,” he mumbled.

A pause. “You _what_, now?”

“The stairs. I fell down them. It was quite a tumble. I thought, well, how very lucky I was that nobody was around to see it. But it also hurt considerably, and I didn’t want to walk around with such bruising for the rest of the day until battle tomorrow, so that is why I meant to go see Medic.” Spy dropped his hand, looking up at Engie, trying for a smile again. “That’s it. You caught me.”

Engie felt almost like he wanted to laugh, but also Spy _had_ been kind enough to be honest, so he pushed down the urge. Instead he gave into a different one, tsk’ing and giving him a sympathetic peck on the cheek. “Aww. Poor thing,” he hummed.

Spy rolled his eyes. “Regardless. Thank you for being kind enough to help me. And thank you in advance for _never telling anyone that this ever happened_.”

“Yeah, ‘course I won’t,” Engie said. “I promise.”


	3. Sniper/Scout, "This isn't what I wanted/Just smile."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 8 and 55 Speeding Bullet, please? Thx!"
> 
> wasn’t sure if you meant both #8 and also one for #55 or if you meant one drabble encompassing both of them so i just went ahead and did the second one. strap in fellas we’re about to get Angsty]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #8: This isn’t what I wanted.  
#55: Just smile. I really need you to smile right now.

Sniper’s hand was cold and clammy, alternating between lying very, very still, and gripping back hard enough to nearly hurt. That said, Scout preferred the second one. It helped him convince himself that Sniper still had some strength left despite the shivers that wracked his body and the inability to keep food down, as well as him not quite managing to properly fall asleep, never for more than ten minutes or so and never too deeply, the pain or the fever shaking him conscious all too soon.

It was supposed to just be a simple contract. Out in the jungle, taking out some business rival of their boss, Mr. Saxton Hale, who’d invited him to the area under the pretense of a hunting trip to “make amends” between them. The hit itself was relatively easy, but extraction had taken a turn for the worse.

The team had consisted of Scout (playing the role of distraction), Sniper (who would be making the hit itself), Demo (to take down the building the target was in, to destroy evidence), and Pyro (to help with the evidence destruction and to be there as backup if something went pear-shaped).

But then when they were on their way out, Demo was delivered a shotgun round into the back, and they were forced to use almost all of their meager supply of medical fluid to try and get him walking again. And they’d managed it, and gotten out safely.

But Sniper, quietly during the worst of the chaos, had taken a bit of fragmentation to his leg. He stopped the bleeding, wrapped the wound. Assumed he would be fine until they could get to a supply cache and raid it for more medical supplies, or until they could get back to the base. All he’d need is some crutches until he got there. Nothing major.

And then it’d gotten infected.

Scout listened to the shaky, raspy in-and-out of Sniper’s breathing, the way it rattled around inside his chest far too much. Either he would survive the night and be well enough to travel by the next day, or he’d…

Or…

Scout rubbed over the back of Sniper’s hand with his thumb. To bring things around all the more, it wasn’t the _most_ opportune time for part of the team (and by extension, probably all of the team) to find out that he and Sniper were… involved. There wasn’t really much excuse for the way Scout had been acting, with them being “best friends” only explaining so much. Somewhere around the point that Scout started holding Sniper’s hand and sitting at his bedside all hours of the day, the excuse (no matter how true) had kind of fallen apart.

Sniper jerked suddenly, pulled awake from his almost-sleep, and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments with obvious confusion, clearly trying to re-orient himself.

“Hey,” Scout said quietly, squeezing his hand once.

Sniper’s fingers twitched in what Scout sincerely hoped wasn’t Sniper’s best attempt at reciprocation. “Hey,” he replied, voice weak and raspy. He cleared his throat lightly, wincing at how raw it still was. Scout had almost needed to leave the room when Demo had taken the shards out. He really, really didn’t like listening to Sniper in so much pain. The changing of his bandages was easier, but only barely.

Scout didn’t look down at his leg. He just looked at Sniper’s face.

That wasn’t great either. His expression was all twisted up in a grimace, and he shifted his head slightly, clearly unwilling to do much else. “What time’s it?” he asked, voice a creak.

“Just after nine,” Scout lied, award that Sniper couldn’t see the clock very well from his position and his lack of glasses.

“How long was I out?”

“About an hour,” Scout lied.

That left Sniper to sigh, gritting his teeth. “I suppose Demo’s not back with painkillers yet?” he asked, hopeful.

“Not yet. Said he’d radio when he was on the way back,” Scout said.

A second sigh. “Damn.”

Scout watched a series of expressions flit across Sniper’s face as he shifted his weight minutely.

“Why did _two_ of us have to get fucked up?” Scout asked, dropping his head to press his cheek into Sniper’s forearm. “Seriously. Why do we suck at our job?”

“It happens. Just bad luck is all,” Sniper said, hand twitching again in a weak attempt at a squeeze. “Can’t help bad luck, or bad intel.”

Scout looked at him quietly for a few moments. He turned his face down. “This isn’t what I wanted,” he said softly.

Sniper didn’t reply.

“I wanted to…” He drew shapes on Sniper’s hand with his thumb. “…I wanted to go and, and head out and sightsee when this mission was over. We were supposed to have a layover in New York, an’ you’ve never been on the East Coast. Not with me, at least.”

A weak attempt to squeeze his hand. Scout squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“And, I wanted to… one’a these days, maybe, we…” He needed to swallow back a lump in his throat. “You’ve never met my family, and my, I’ve got all these nieces an’ nephews and stuff, and hey, what kinda uncle would I be if I didn’t bring over a genuine Australian to meet them? A shitty one, that’s what.”

The slightest intake of breath. Scout didn’t look up. Couldn’t.

“And—I wanted to meet _your_ folks too,” he said, feeling himself rambling but not caring enough to stop it. “See your house. All the dogs you were tellin’ me about. I’ve never been on a farm before, if you can believe that. Born-and-bred city boy, all that crap. Maybe I’d like it. I dunno.”

His eyes were burning. So was his throat.

“And—and I wanted to,” Scout tried, and his voice was rough, but so was Sniper’s, so it was probably okay. “I wanted to, travel with you. Go out and see stuff, maybe, when all this was over. It wasn’t supposed to… _you_ weren’t supposed to, to get all messed up an’…”

His voice finally broke, and now he was the one gripping too-tight on the other one’s hand.

“It ain’t fair,” he choked. “It ain’t _fair_.”

“I know, Roo. I know,” Sniper said softly. A beat of pause. “Get up here. Hurts seein’ you all broken up and not bein’ able to hug you. C’mon. Breakin’ my heart, ‘ere.”

Scout only paused for a moment before he complied, moving to wrap his arms around Sniper, pulling him in close. Sniper gave a grunt of discomfort as he managed to force his own arms up around Scout despite protesting muscles, and they remained there for a good moment.

“Who says we can’t still do all that, aye?” Sniper asked after a moment. “C’mon now. I thought you were supposed to be the optimistic one. Can’t have you goin’ all grim on me now. Bad for morale.”

Scout pulled back enough to look at him, and Sniper winced as he forced his arm back around to cup his face.

“Go on then. Perk up,” he said, trying for a little smile. “I can’t look _that_ bad, can I?”

Scout’s eyes were watering in earnest. His voice caught in his chest, grating against his ribcage. Sniper’s expression faltered.

“Really. What’s that look for?” he prompted.

Scout reached up to cup Sniper’s hand to his face, sniffling, furiously blinking back tears. “I just, I feel so fuckin’ useless,” he admitted. “You’re lyin’ here sick an’ hurtin’, and I—I can’t _do anything_. It’s _killin’ me_.”

Sniper gave him a little smile. “Hey, now. You’re doin’ plenty,” he corrected gently.

“Cryin’ like a baby isn’t helpful,” Scout said with a huff.

“Maybe not. But you’ve been here,” Sniper said, thumb rubbing over Scout’s cheek, “at my side, watchin’ out for me. Helps put me at ease, otherwise bein’ as helpless as I am, I’m sure I wouldn’t sleep a wink. And you’ve been holdin’ my hand, helpin’ keep me distracted from the pain. Telling me I’ll be okay. Not laughing at me for being such a useless lump. Or complaining about how bloody gross my leg looks, because I _know_ it looks gross, I’ve seen an infected wound before, they’re _nasty_ buggers.”

“Are you _really_ tryin’ to comfort me right now?” Scout asked disbelievingly.

“A bit,” Sniper confirmed. He tilted his head, ever so slightly. “Roo. What I’m getting at is that… you, here? This helps me. It really does.”

Scout sniffled again. “But what can I _do_, to make you feel better? Other than that?”

Sniper’s face was pale, and shiny with sweat, but his eyes were surprisingly clear. “Just smile. I really need you to smile right now,” he said, voice wobbly.

Scout blinked at him.

Sniper took a breath, exhaled. “Scout, I’ve gotten hurt before—par for the course—and I’ve gotten pretty badly sick as well. But this is…” He had to take another breath. His voice was weak, shakier than Scout had perhaps ever heard it. “Roo, this is scary. I’m… I’m scared right now. I just need you to tell me it’s going to be okay. Just a little smile, that’s all I’m asking.”

Scout looked at him, swallowed hard. Leaned in and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. When he drew back, it was easy to bring a smile onto his face.

“Yeah. You’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be alright,” he said, and managed to believe it, at least for a second, seeing the relief on Sniper’s face, the way the tension melted from his shoulders.

“I’m gonna be okay. It’s gonna be alright,” he repeated back.

It would be alright. It _had_ to be.


	4. Sniper/Scout, "I'm not drunk enough for this."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 41 for speeding bullet please!"
> 
> (warnings for alcohol and just terrible, terrible passenger seat etiquette)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #41: I'm not drunk enough for this.

Sniper had long since buried his face in his hands, trying his best to pretend that he wasn’t associated with the other hooligans accosting the bartender despite the fact that his uniform matched theirs and he’d clearly visibly entered the establishment with the rest of them.

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” Sniper murmured to nobody in particular.

Engie, to his credit, being the other designated driver for the night, gave him a consolatory pat on the shoulder before ordering himself some kind of low-proof craft beer that was advertised, and an ice water. “We’ll be here a good few hours I reckon, imagine there’s time for you to get _one_ drink at least,” he shrugged.

“If I get one drink, I’ll just get tempted,” Sniper replied.

“Fair point,” Engie conceded, and moved off to keep an eye on the attack team, who’d all taken to trying to get in on a pool game happening towards the back of the bar.

Overall, the night was a blur of various headaches for Sniper, and he was almost relieved to see it over, except that when they went to make a head count ten minutes before they would be headed out back to base, they realized a few of their number had gone missing and Sniper was sent to track them down. Pyro he found lighting a trash can on fire just around the corner, and Spy was smoking outside of a different, immediately classier-looking bar that seemed to serve mostly wine as opposed to the wild drink specials of the one they’d decided to go to. Both were hauled back to the place they’d parked, where Sniper found the tail end of an argument being broken up between the team.

Engie looked considerably frazzled, and Scout was pouting, and Soldier was holding his jaw, which even then looked like it was bruising. Engie turned to him as he approached. “Well, Stretch, two things,” he said. “First, it turns out it _was_ a good idea to bring the truck _and_ the bread van. Our good Demo’s down for the count, and will probably need to be lyin’ down in the back seat. But I think we’ll need to switch on who’s drivin’ what. You know how to drive stick shift?”

Sniper felt his already thoroughly soured mood beginning to ferment. “Explain.”

Engie rubbed the back of his neck. “Now I know you took the van on the way here, and it’s what you’re more used to in terms of maneuverability an’ all, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to have any of these lot in the bed of the truck like before, and… we’re gonna need both vehicles occupied anyways. Since _some_ of our teammates,” he said pointedly, shooting a look at Scout and Soldier, “have gone and gotten in a fight again and I’m not convinced they won’t start up again if they’re stuck in a space together.”

Sniper dragged a hand over his face. “So I’m drivin’ the truck?” he asked.

Engie rubbed the back of his neck. “Well. Also you’re gonna need someone in the passenger seat,” he added carefully.

“Truckie, _why_.”

“Like I said, we can’t have a fistfight in the back of the van. You can take your pick on who you want with you, Scooter or Solly, but, I’m gonna need to ask you to take at least one.”

It wasn’t a terribly tough decision. “I suppose I’ll bring Scout, then,” he said begrudgingly. Soldier was banned from taking shotgun (in every sense of the word) for a good reason.

Engie nodded, and tossed him the keys to the truck. “Alright, well, besides that I’m ready when you are,” he said, and started shooing their group along, trying his best to heft Demo to his feet.

“I’m _not drunk enough for this_,” Sniper called again, but within a few moments he was left standing in the parking lot alone with Scout anyways.

For a moment, neither of them spoke, just watching the team go through the ordeal that was trying to get half a dozen highly intoxicated murderers in the back of a van.

“Sup?” Scout finally asked Sniper, grin lopsided and self-satisfied.

“Let’s just go,” Sniper sighed, leading the way towards the truck. “The sooner we get back to base, the sooner I can be done with this whole mess.”

“What, you got other plans?” Scout asked, bumping shoulders with him amicably. Scout tended to get more physical with other people when drunk, he’d found, either in the way of slinging his arm around a teammate cheerfully or clocking someone in the jaw. For now, it seemed he was drifting towards the former.

“Yeah. Headache medicine and waking up early to get myself breakfast so I don’t have to deal with you lot and your hangovers,” Sniper replied, needing to lightly push Scout towards his side of the truck to get him to stop following him like a duckling.

“Sounds like a real party,” Scout said, clambering gracelessly into the passenger seat, needing to take a few valiant attempts before finally managing to get his seatbelt done. “Can I come?”

“I believe I said something about _not dealing with you lot and your hangovers_,” Sniper emphasized, turning the key and fighting the engine a bit to try and get the battered old truck started.

It wasn’t until the engine finally turned over and the truck rattled to life that Sniper processed the uncharacteristic silence from his passenger. When he looked over, Scout was moping, slouched, staring out the passenger window, wearing the most kicked-puppy expression Sniper had ever seen.

“You can just keep pouting,” he said nonetheless, shaking off the immediate guilt that such an expression stabbed into him and instead turning his gaze to the rear-view mirror as he sent the truck into motion, starting to exit the parking lot. “Really. This is as pleasant as I’m gonna get for the rest of the evening.”

“What’d I even do?” Scout asked, the hurt shining through his voice and still hitting him despite Sniper’s dogged avoiding of eye contact. “What’s your problem?”

He clenched the steering wheel hard in his left hand as he shifted through gears with the right, released. “I don’t happen to enjoy going out and… “being social”, or whatever it is that you lot seem convinced is so great,” he replied. “It stresses me out. And usually I get to at least get myself smashed to try an’ take the edge off it, but I’m the other driver for the night, so I’m not allowed to have anything. Frankly, I’m tired of talking to, to _people_. So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate some peace an’ quiet.”

To Sniper’s immense surprise, the little lecture and request of his actually worked. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes into the drive and Scout was still being quiet and relatively still in the passenger seat. They were making fairly good time, and it seemed the remaining half hour’s drive back to base would go without further incident.

“You’re really grumpy, y’know,” Scout said suddenly, and the peace was ruined.

Admittedly, the twenty minutes of quiet had done some good for Sniper’s nerves and temper. “I’m aware,” he said levelly.

“You should lighten up, have some fun once an’ awhile,” Scout insisted.

“I do have fun,” Sniper protested, a bit more quietly now. “Just not when I’m driving.”

Quiet for a second. “Like, when you’re actually _driving_, or when you’re _supposed_ to be driving like, later?” Scout asked.

“The second one. Don’t know exactly how much fun can be had when I’m behind the wheel without getting in a wreck,” Sniper replied.

Quiet for another second. “Plenty,” Scout said.

Sniper furrowed his eyebrows. “What?”

“You can have plenty of fun,” Scout said.

His eyebrows remained furrowed. “I… don’t think I follow,” he murmured.

Scout was suddenly leaning bodily over the gearshift and slinging an arm around Sniper, startling the hell out of him and making him concentrate very hard to keep from swerving off the highway. “Careful,” Scout chirped unhelpfully, and Sniper could see his grin in his periphery.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sniper practically growled.

“Havin’ fun,” Scout said, undissuaded. Sniper wasn’t aware when exactly Scout got his seatbelt off, but it was pretty clear that it was gone given how close Scout was to him now. “Cool it, maybe.”

“Hard to cool it when I’m goin’ _well over a hundred kilometers per hour_ in a _stick shift_ and there’s someone _leanin’ over the gear change_.”

“Dude, this road’s got two lanes and it’s the middle of the night and there’s nobody anywhere the hell near us.” The hand Scout had slung around him moved to start mussing his hair out of order. “_Relax._ It’s fine!”

The panic simmered down a little bit, but only slightly. “There’s still road signs. And this _isn’t even my truck_.”

“Hey, hey hey hey,” Scout said in a voice that might’ve been soothing if not for the fact that he leaned even further over the gearshift to use it, chin leaning on Sniper’s shoulder. “It’s cool. It’s fine.”

“Can I ask _why_ you think this is a good idea?” Sniper asked, tightening his grip on the wheel as Scout shifted again.

He shrugged, moving Sniper’s shoulders in the process, car swerving only slightly. “You said tonight sucked, right? And was stupid an’ boring? Might as well make it interesting, yeah?” He leaned in further, having to use his right hand to steady himself, putting it on the seat between the gearshift and Sniper’s leg. He felt the end of Scout’s nose brushing against his pulse point. It made his heart thud more than the swerving did. “This is interesting.”

To be fair, it was.

“Wouldn’t‘ve pegged you as a cuddly drunk,” Sniper said, a weak attempt at humor. “Thought you were more the, the hittin’ type.”

“I am hittin’,” Scout pointed out, right hand starting to idly pick at the outer seam of Sniper’s jeans. “Just, _on_ you.”

Sniper had to clear his throat, swallow hard to buy time to formulate a response to that. Scout’s hand dropped from his hair to brush over the front of his throat, catching on his adam’s apple. “I feel like you’re,” he tried, and had to swallow again to make his voice steady, except Scout did that thing with his hand again and it threw him right back off balance. “I feel like you’re gonna, either not remember this on account’a being so, so hammered, or you’ll remember but be…” Scout’s hand migrated to rest just above his knee and Sniper jumped bodily, making Scout chuckle. “But, but be… embarrassed about this, and… not wanna talk to me ever again.”

“Maybe,” Scout admitted. “Or maybe it’ll be nice.”

Sniper felt a shiver catch in his shoulders. He could practically feel Scout’s grin, bared teeth millimeters from the skin of his neck, from his pulse point. “Nice?” he repeated weakly, accent twisting the word in a way that made him cringe internally.

“Yeah. Nice,” Scout insisted, and finally leaned up far enough to lie a kiss at the hinge of Sniper’s jaw, slowly, giving Sniper every opportunity to push him away, as if he hadn’t had enough already.

His breath was shaking. His hands, too. There was admittedly a spike of adrenaline running through him, only partly due to the danger of their situation, and it gave his limbs a distinct tremble. Hopefully Scout was too drunk to notice.

Hopefully Scout was sober enough to remember this, though, as well. Sniper, for the first time all night, was glad that he himself was.


	5. Sniper/Scout, "When I'm with you, I'm home."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["deathtothecrows asked: 15 for speeding bullet cause I’m a sucker for the way you write them"
> 
> hell yea man!! (warnings for cuddling and sappy shit)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #15: When I'm with you, I'm home.

Coldfront was, speaking completely objectively, the worst place on earth.

Now, Scout knew cold. He was better off than most of the team when it came to cold, beaten only by Heavy (three steps away from a literal actual bear) and Pyro (who Scout wasn’t even completely convinced felt pain, let alone things like temperature). Growing up in Boston, so close to the seaboard, family unable to pay the heating bill every other year and with hole-filled hand-me-downs as his only option for clothing, it made him get used to feeling cold really quickly. He knew when to start pulling on two pairs of socks and a second t-shirt under his jacket to keep warm, knew to eat a hot meal whenever possible and keep out of the wind and to only start worrying about his extremities the moment they _stopped_ aching with cold. He knew cold.

But Coldfront, in the dead of winter, was _cold_ cold. Frostbite-after-twenty-minutes-of-exposure kinds of cold. Negative-twenty-windchill-in-the-height-of-day kinds of cold. Heavy-putting-on-gloves kinds of cold.

The fact that they almost always got stationed in Coldfront for at least part of the winter every year was what started to convince him that their boss straight up hated them.

He always felt especially bad for Sniper when they were stationed in Coldfront. He didn’t know how to stand to best hold in body heat or to take off your jacket to thermoregulate when indoors, and didn’t ever really have major cold to deal with anyways. He was born and bred and built for raw, sweltering, pavement-boiling heat, and couldn’t do cold. The first year they ended up in Coldfront, the first night ended with Respawn firing up at one in the morning and Sniper stumbling out of it, having frozen to death in his camper while he slept. He was left cold and miserable from the weather, and horribly stressed since he could no longer sleep in his camper and instead had to bunk with everyone else, something he was very much not used to.

A necessity of the cold was having the mercs pair up and share rooms during the worst of the cold half the time, as only some rooms had heating or stoves or fireplaces, and there weren’t enough for everyone to have one room for each of them, and they needed the additional bodies to heat rooms even that much more.

Once Scout and Sniper became… _best buddies_, it was unspoken that if everyone was going to be rooming together, they’d pair up to share, an immediate improvement of the previous arrangement of Demo and Soldier and Scout sharing a room, with Soldier and Scout getting in fistfights frequently enough for Engie to stick a dispenser in the hall outside and Demo being enabled to drink even more than usual once he had people who were willing to drink with him on hand at all times.

The room had two twin beds, but right up front, the two of them pushed the twins together to make one large bed, already knowing they would end up sharing.

Scout finished off his nightly routine by shoving more wood into the stove that stood inconveniently in the middle of one wall, then moving to get under the three quilts they’d piled on the bed to join Sniper. Sniper didn’t hesitate to pull Scout over, as he was growing used to. Sniper was faintly shivering, even under the blankets, and had informed Scout on more than one occasion that he was like if a hot water bottle was a person. Scout was okay with dealing with Sniper’s cold hands for the sake of cuddles, not that he’d ever say it out loud. He had a reputation to keep.

With their combined body heat, the cold of the room was chased away fairly quickly from under their multiple blankets, and soon they were left feeling toasty for the first time since the previous night. Sniper’s shivering faded away, and he slowly started untensing, Scout helping him along by kneading at his shoulders idly. He gave a soft noise of approval, well and truly sinking into Scout.

“Y’know the one good thing about this awful place?” Sniper murmured, voice muffled by the pillow he’d buried his face in.

Scout hummed in question.

“Get the excuse to hold you like this all the time,” he said. Scout’s heart swelled in his chest, and he felt a goofy smile pull at his cheeks despite his best efforts.

“Sappy,” he chided quietly, holding him a bit tighter for a second.

“Maybe.”

Scout chewed on a thought for a few seconds, considering whether he would be laughed at if he said it. Given how cheesy Sniper had just been, he doubted he would, but he did think about it for a minute regardless.

“Y’know,” Scout finally said, making up his mind, “I remember when I was a kid, we, uh, there were some years when we didn’t have heating. There was this one winter when I was little—like _little_ little—when we didn’t have heat an’ it got real cold at night, and so one night I just, went into Ma’s room and asked to share with her for the night because it was so freakin’ cold. A few of my brothers—we, uh, shared a room, y’know?—wanted to know where I ran off to when I didn’t come back, an’ they ended up sharin’ too. We ended up with like, the four youngest an’ Ma all piled on a queen-sized for the night. It was, uh…” He realized all at once that he probably sounded ridiculous. “…It was nice.”

Sniper hummed, and it was quiet for a second. “Did somethin’ similar as a tyke. M’dad hated it. Thought it’d make me soft, headed to share the bed with my mum every time I heard the dogs barkin’ outside tryin’ to send up the alarm about some predator or another wandering too close.” A short pause again. “And maybe it did. Dunno. Did help at the time, though.”

“I just had my brothers for that sorta thing,” Scout hummed. “I ever woke up from a nightmare, I’d just be in a room with like at least five dudes who all could and practically _have_ scalped a guy for pickin’ on me. Upside of bein’ the youngest. And if I ever _did_ call in Ma on someone, that’s, uh, yikes. She takes no hostages.”

“Your mum sounds pretty great,” Sniper said.

“So’s yours,” Scout replied.

A pause. “Yeah. Most’a the time,” he agreed carefully.

Scout tilted his head a bit. “What’s the hesitation?”

Another pause, longer. “Just… she did… her best,” he said, just as carefully. “She couldn’t help… the, the fact that I was… fact that I _am_, just…”

Scout tilted his head a bit further, but Sniper pulled him closer, keeping his face out of sight.

“She couldn’t help that there’s somethin’ not right with me, and she tried to help me work around it,” he finally settled on. “Did what she could. Didn’t kick me out. Still… talks to me an’ all, even though I ran off.”

Scout frowned. “Not right with you?”

Sniper shook his head lightly, exhaling. “It’s a lot. I’ll… explain later,” he said. “I just wanna enjoy this.”

Scout was still grappling with the concept of not being unconditionally fond of one’s family. His brothers pissed him off, sure, and he sometimes went a good week or so being mad at them, but he would never hesitate to say that they were good overall (except to their faces). No matter how annoyed he was with them, he would never waste a second jumping into a fight to defend their honor, just as they always did for him. The thought of not having that was…

It made his chest hurt to think about. He didn’t get it.

“Don’t you miss them?” he asked quietly. “Don’t you miss being home, and… and goin’ around town seeing what all’s the same, what’s different, and… and talkin’ about what all the neighbors have gotten up to, and what the latest drama is, and…”

Sniper shrugged lightly, careful not to dislodge Scout. The motion did move the blankets just slightly, and a tiny burst of air flooded into their haven under the blankets, surprisingly refreshing. “Never really had that,” he said quietly. “Town was a while away from the farm. A good few miles’ walk got me to school if I cut through the brush, but town was always a drive. And the house was… the house was work, usually, shepherding, takin’ care of the land, the few non-sheep we had. I suppose I have the van, but that was always just me, and I was always moving.”

“But what was _home?_” Scout insisted, a grief sinking into his chest at the prospect Sniper was explaining.

Sniper was quiet for a few moments, thinking, and just that pause made his chest ache even worse. “Dunno what makes somethin’ count as one,” he admitted, voice gravelly.

Scout thought for a second. “Just… somewhere safe, somewhere that makes you… feel good. Like, like you’re allowed to relax, like you can just… _be_, like nothin’s gonna go wrong, and… like you’re…” He took another second. “Like you can just recharge there, and if somethin’ _does_ go wrong, that’s where you can go to recover. It’s… a place you know, and it’s reliable, and it’s safe.”

Sniper was silent. Contemplating. Scout counted a good dozen heartbeats before he spoke again.

“When I’m with you, I’m home,” Sniper finally said, voice quieter than ever before, and all at once Scout was paralyzed. He tried to pull back enough to look at Sniper, but Sniper wouldn’t budge.

“Hey. Look at me,” Scout requested, hand stroking over Sniper’s back in what he hoped was a soothing motion. Sniper did pull back after a second, and Scout cupped his cheek cautiously, aware that suddenly this moment became fragile, that breaking it might just be irreparable. He chose his words carefully. “I’m gonna be the kinda home you’ve got for a long time, alright?” he said softly.

Sniper had to break eye contact, blinking a few times, stubbornly holding back the wetness in his eyes, swallowing hard. “Thank you,” he said, voice thick despite his best efforts.

“Hey. I mean it,” Scout said, tilting his head to get back in Sniper’s line of sight. He tried for a smile. “You’re stuck with me.”

That got him a smile and eye contact, at least for a moment, before Sniper pulled him back into an embrace. “I hope so,” he said. He took a breath, exhaled shakily. “God, I hope so.”


	6. Sniper/Scout, "Is that my shirt?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["kirakari asked: 44 or 85, whatever you prefer for speeding bullet 💕"
> 
> the last one i did was a cold one, so i went with 44 to mix things up a bit. (warnings for some ~saucy implications~, pancakes, and sniper’s caffeine addiction)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #44: Is that my shirt?

Sniper wasn’t particularly a morning person. It took him half a pot of coffee to even open his eyes all the way, and then another cup or two to carry him though the first part of the way until lunch. He was much more of a night owl, but he forced himself to adapt if only to keep his head in the game when it came to his job with RED. He needed to be professional.

Pouring himself his second cup of the morning, he eyed the bright blue t-shirt and cap draped carelessly over the edge of the chair at his table and the individual occupying half of his mattress and admitted to himself that his professionalism only really extended so far.

He finished drinking enough coffee to keep himself awake and went to get in the shower, through with getting cleaned up and fairly towelled off in about ten minutes, and shaving and brushing his teeth in another five.

He left the tiny tiny bathroom to go chug himself another mug’s worth of coffee before he got dressed and saw that his… what were they, exactly? More than friends, certainly. Well, he saw that the BLU Scout had woken up, and was apparently setting to work on breakfast.

“Mornin’,” he chirped, ever the morning person, glancing Sniper (still clad in a towel around the waist) up and down once before returning to what appeared to be pancakes.

Sniper had to blink a few times before he could process what he was looking at. “Is that my shirt?” Sniper finally asked, looking at the rumbled button-up that his… _whatever_ had apparently decided to put on.

He ducked his head. “It was cold,” he said a little sheepishly, ears starting to go red.

“Too cold for your own shirt?” Sniper asked, raising an eyebrow.

Scout ducked his head that much further.

“Well, step over, I need to get dressed,” Sniper instructed, shooing the BLU to one side to get access to his cabinets.

“Or you could just not,” Scout suggested easily.

“You wish,” Sniper retorted just as easily, fishing out a pair of pants.

He should probably have been a bit more worried about how easily he was talking with someone on the other team. Their little ‘friendship’ was eighteen steps beyond not allowed, and could get either of them sacked in an instant. Beyond that, he had nothing beyond the Scout’s word to prove that he wasn’t being used for information or on the road to manipulation or sabotage.

Then again, the Scout could say the same. So maybe they were even.

“By the way, you’re gonna be out of pancake mix,” the Scout said lightly, not looking up from the pan in front of him, ducking slightly to let Sniper glance in the cabinet over him.

“Are you really going to eat that many pancakes?” Sniper asked, finishing buttoning up his slacks.

“Oh, for sure. You haven’t seen my appetite. Uh, same goes for the syrup,” Scout said, pushing the sleeves of the shirt up to sit above his elbows where they’d fallen down.

“That bottle is half full.”

“I said what I said.”

Sniper huffed a laugh, rolling his eyes as he pulled on a pair of socks. “Well. Thank you for breakfast anyways.”

“Who said any of these were for you?” Scout teased, shooting him a lopsided grin.

Sniper moved to stand behind Scout, wrapping arms around his waist and holding him against his chest, still bare and a bit damp from the shower. “The fact that it’s _my_ camper _and_ my pancake mix _and_ my syrup,” he replied.

Scout leaned into his hold easily, flipping a pancake onto the already sizeable plate and moving to pour another. “I _guess_ you have a point,” Scout sighed.

“Mmm.” Sniper looked down, tracing his index finger in a circle against Scout’s side, grinning when that made him stifle a laugh, ticklish. “You look good.”

“I always look good,” Scout said cheekily.

“True.” Sniper kissed him on the temple. “But you look especially good in my shirt.”

“It’s massive on me,” Scout said, moving to push up his sleeves again. “Like one’a those sleep shirt things, kinda. And red really ain’t my color.”

“Well I like it,” Sniper said simply, kissing him on the cheek now. “Maybe just because it’s my shirt. Has my symbol on it and all. Feels a bit like I’m sayin’ you’re someone I’ve got a claim to.”

“I don’t think you can get dibs on a _person_, babe.”

“Well if you could, I imagine wearin’ a shirt with their insignia on it would be a good first step, aye?”

Scout turned his head to kiss him head-on in reply, a lazy, easy sort of kiss that left Sniper feeling satisfaction deep in his gut when they pulled away a moment later.

“Or maybe this is just my way of stealin’ your shirt,” Scout said, grinning at him.

“Try it,” Sniper dared, putting on a faux threatening tone ruined by his own grin, ducking in to press rapid-fire kisses across Scout’s face, making him laugh.

“You’re gonna make me burn the fuckin’ pancakes,” Scout managed to protest between his laughter. “You’re eating the ruined ones, asshole!”

“Sounds fair,” Sniper didn’t hesitate to say, diving right back in, digging fingers into Scout’s sides as well.

That set Scout off further, the pitch of his laughter instantly rising, trying to fight Sniper’s grip on him. “You’re such a dick!” he gasped.

“Mmhmm,” Sniper hummed in agreement, tormenting Scout for only a few more moments before he pulled away to let him breathe, laughing a bit as well, Scout’s tone infectious.

“Fuckin’ _fine_, I’ll give the shirt back,” Scout said once he had reasonable control over his breath, face red, still smiling despite himself.

“Don’t you dare,” Sniper replied, mussing his hair affectionately.

Maybe he could learn to be a morning person. Maybe just for this.


	7. Medic&Scout, "This is going to hurt."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 19 “This is going to hurt.” Blunt Trauma please!"
> 
> im just gonna assume you meant 17 because that’s the sentence you tagged on it. here’s some medic/scout content yo (warnings for just so many needles and other various pain-related stuff, as well as drug mention in passing)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #17: This is going to hurt.

“This is going to hurt.”

_“Ow!”_

“I _said_ it was going to hurt.”

“Yeah, and it fuckin’ hurt, so I said ‘ow’. That’s how things hurting works, Doc.”

Medic sighed, eyeing the remaining two dozen needles on the tray, then Scout’s bare back. “Herr Scout, if you are going to complain the entire time, I can go and get a different volunteer,” he said begrudgingly.

“Oh, don’t even worry, I’m _gonna_ complain the entire time,” Scout said, voice slightly muffled from him being facedown on the operating table. “But also I’m pretty sure nobody else is gonna agree and I’m a last resort, so, you’re just gonna have to deal, Doc.”

Medic only considered that for a few moments before picking up another needle.

“So what’d you say this was called, again?” Scout asked, head turning just slightly. “Acu-picture?”

“Acupuncture.”

“And—ow—_why_ do people do this? Because so far this sucks.”

“Oh, plenty of reasons,” Medic said, eyeing the chart he had before him for a few moments before picking up the next needle. “Performing it on this area of the back is supposedly good for…” He squinted, pushing his glasses up a bit. “…Dizziness. Which I understand has been a problem?”

“Uh, yeah, I—ow. Yeah, I think I just need to like, drink more water.”

“Hydration is not the problem, nor blood loss,” Medic said, picking up another needle. “It is something I _could_ feasibly give you medication for, but it is not often I get the chance to practice attempting alternative therapies.”

“What, like what Sniper does on the weekends?”

“Don’t tell me what Herr Sniper may or may not do on the weekends. I would rather continue pretending I don’t know for plausible deniability.”

“Apparently Miss P visited for a bit and did some with him.”

“_Please_ do not tell me what Miss Pauling and Sniper may or may not participate in recreationally so that I can _please_ have plausible deniability,” Medic said, pushing the needle in a bit faster than he’d done previously.

“Ow.”

“Regardless. While that may be a sort of… remedy, for certain problems, that is not what I mean. I was talking about treatments that are not necessarily condoned by the scientific community due only to lack of research despite a consistent trail of evidence pointing to it being effective in certain patients when done correctly, mainly because the treatments stood long before research was nearly as standard and often don’t have single individuals to credit and the community is wildly biased against older remedies. Mainly they’re things that seem strange but are often extremely effective for reasons unknown.”

“Isn’t that like, _everything_ you do?”

Medic paused. “Herr Scout, my experimentation _is_ research,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s all kinda weird, and painful, and doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it still works anyways. So it’s basically just like architecture.”

“…Acupuncture,” Medic said when he realized what Scout was talking about.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“To be fair, it is not _intended_ to hurt,” Medic said, ignoring the little ‘ow’ Scout said as he pushed in another needle. “There are often interesting sensations, but very little actual pain. The gauges of my needles should be the correct size, I believe I just need more practice.”

“Is that why you cut people open all the time too? For practice?” Scout asked sarcastically, and yelped when Medic flicked one of the needles.

“No. That is research.” Silence between them for a few moments, broken only by Scout mumbling more ‘ow’s. “How has your other treatment been working?”

“My what?”

“The… _Koffein_, caffeine, the, er, energy drinks.”

“Y’know, it’s—ow—it’s weird,” Scout said. “Because the guys drink coffee, and you European guys drink tea, and it’s always a thing that I hear, like, it’s supposed to wake you up? But it doesn’t wake me up at all. Coffee just makes me kinda wanna throw up and makes my hands shake a lot more, and tea tastes fuckin’ gross because you people have wrong mouths or something—ow! Hey!”

“Hmm?” Medic asked, feigning innocence.

“That one was on purpose!” Scout accused.

“No, no, of course not,” Medic said lightly. “Continue.”

“…Uh, but yeah, I don’t like tea. But the caffeine in a can, that stuff works great. All the making my brain shut up from coffee but none’a the nausea. Keeps me focused, makes me… notice stuff that matters, and not just, like, everything all the time always. And less of the zoning out.” A pause. “Does make my head hurt, though, when I back off of it again on weekends an’ stuff. And makes me sick when I don’t drink it for a while.”

“Hmm. Perhaps easing in and out of drinking it…” Medic mused quietly. “Regardless. Thank you, Herr Scout. This is important research.”

“You don’t gotta call me that, y’know,” Scout said, tilting his head down obligingly when Medic moved it.

_“Was?”_ Medic asked, picking up the chart to look more closely at it.

“Herr Scout. Isn’t that kinda like saying ‘Mister’ or somethin’?”

Medic hesitated for a second. “…Not perfectly, but essentially, yes,” he replied.

“Well, you don’t gotta call me that,” Scout said, wincing hard at the next needle, pushed in carefully near his hair line. “Fuckin’ _ow_. You can just call me Scout.”

“Why do you say that?” Medic asked, frowning, and consulted the chart again.

“I mean, we’re teammates more than just co-workers. And, hell, I kinda figured some of us guys were… y’know, buddies,” he said, voice getting quiet towards the end. “And you know my real name anyways, it’s in my file. And probably a bunch more stuff about me that none of the guys know. Maybe that anyone knows. So… I dunno. Seems kinda weird to keep being all formal about stuff. Even Spy’s calmed down about it at this point, and that dude’s a total dick.”

Medic considered for a moment. “Perhaps I simply prefer to remain professional,” he said, a little stiffly.

Scout barked a laugh. “What are you, Sniper?” he asked, a little disbelieving. “And even that guy smokes weed on the weekends.”

Medic smacked Scout on the lower back where there were no needles, huffing. “I told you not to tell me about that!” he said, not a little irritated. “Now I will need to address it!”

“Or you can pretend I didn’t say anything,” Scout suggested.

“That would require me trusting you not to tell anyone that I know about it.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Scout said, lightly and easily in a way that made Medic have to pause for a few seconds.

“And why should I believe you?” Medic asked next.

“Dude, I literally just said we’re friends _maybe_ two minutes ago,” Scout scoffed, and Medic could practically hear his eyes rolling. “Seriously, are you sure you aren’t the one with the memory problems? Or the attention issues?”

Medic set his jaw, and had to fight hard to keep emotions from welling up in his chest. “My memory is fine,” he said a little stiffly. One more wince from Scout, and his tray was empty. “There. Should be done.”

“Hey, by the way, one more question,” Scout said, trying not to move too much.

“Yes?”

“How come you didn’t ask to do this to the big guy?”

“Higher pain tolerance. I would not know if I was doing things incorrectly,” Medic answered. A pause. To be fair, Scout had been very nice, had had the courage to be almost alarmingly open and honest. He could afford to drop the professionalism, at least for a moment. “And I’ll admit that I find you occasionally entertaining, and enjoy our conversations. Your enthusiasm in what I have to say is admittedly refreshing.”

“Aww,” Scout teased. “Thanks, Doc.”

“Hmm. Clench your teeth, it is time to take these back out.”

“Aw, man.”


	8. Sniper/Scout, "My head hurts."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["technocoloredprince asked: 9 “My head hurts.” for Speedingbullet ~ also you're now my new fav fic author <3"
> 
> thank you very much, you’re very sweet!! (warnings for me being mean to scout again)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #9: My head hurts.

Sniper really didn’t intend for things to go the way he did. He really didn’t mean any harm. Honest.

Before he joined the team, Sniper was _aware_ of the concept of pranks and whatnot, sure, but he’d never really been subjected to any, or done them to other people. He didn’t go to college (a place where, allegedly according to Engie, pranks happen a lot) and he didn’t technically finish his last year of required schooling and even before that the closest thing to a “prank” that his classmates would do was essentially beat him up. Black eyes and bruises and bloody noses were their idea of a hilarious after-school activity to rope him into.

But on the base, he was introduced to actual pranks. The inside of Demo’s eyepatch being coated in syrup while he’s asleep, Soldier’s helmet being covered in dozens of sparkly stickers, plastic wrap over the door to the kitchen, things like that. Things that were actually a bit funny and not anything worse than annoying and inconvenient to the person being pranked.

At some point, Scout, main prank-maker of the team (years of experience under his belt, apparently) had tried to get Sniper. Salt in the sugar bowl. He’d sat down with coffee, the terrible “acquired taste” stuff that Spy occasionally drank because he mysteriously couldn’t find the normal stuff, and put a spoon’s worth into his mug to make it more bearable. Stirred it. He hadn’t noticed what Scout’s expression was until he lifted the mug to take a sip and made eye contact over the rim. Absolute interest in what Sniper was doing, just a smidge too much to be normal, and no focus at all on the bowl of cereal before him, which just wasn’t normal.

He took his sip, and it was only with that suspicion in the back of his head that he managed to keep from making a face at the taste of it. And then Sniper had a choice to make, and he did so quickly.

He drank the entire mug without flinching. Scout’s confusion rose with every bob of his adam’s apple.

“Something on my face?” Sniper asked neutrally when he put the empty mug down again, the very picture of normalcy.

“Uh,” Scout said, and shook himself from his shock, “I, uh, no. No, you’re good.”

A few beats passed, then Scout picked up the sugar bowl, glancing down at it. He hummed to himself, tipping a bit into his cereal, then putting it down and taking a bite.

He choked immediately, then looked up at Sniper, who was trying very hard not to laugh. “Oh, fuck _you_.”

That had been the beginning of a little prank war between the two of them.

Scout had done plenty of things. A glitter bomb from an envelope that looked just like the envelopes they received with information for contracts. Taken about half a dozen stray cats from the nearby town and put them all in Sniper’s camper while he was in the base doing laundry. Replaced all the cans of beans and soup that he had stocked up in case of emergencies big or small with cans of brussel sprouts. Given Engie twenty dollars to make a tiny little device that made a little beeping noise every two minutes and fifteen seconds, and promptly hidden it under Sniper’s mattress, driving him bonkers for a total of an hour and a half before he finally found it. It was worth noting that Sniper did lock his door, the little bugger just knew how to pick locks apparently.

Sniper’s major form of retribution for most of the pranks was to act either like it didn’t bother him or like he _enjoyed_ what Scout did. He ended up cooking the brussel sprouts for dinner one day, and talked to Scout about how friendly all the cats were and what their names now were, and Scout was clearly extremely annoyed to see Sniper acting completely normal when he went to battle the day after the beeper incident. But for pranks like the glitter bomb, which left him in a sparkly uniform when he went to dinner, he did feel the need to deliver actual retribution.

Which is why he put an armadillo in Scout’s room. And a small non-venomous snake in Scout’s room after he then started locking his door. And the friendly owl that liked to pester Sniper for snacks in Scout’s room through the window when he asked Demo for help moving his door slightly closer to the floor. He just found that Scout tended to react a lot to animals and kept running with it.

Also he broke Scout’s door once, but to be fair that wasn’t part of a prank. That was a different thing. Which was only tangentially Sniper’s fault technically sort of. He apologized. He got a second glitter bomb.

And admittedly, their little prank war had died down a bit after that, mainly because they’d gotten on somewhat friendlier terms somehow during the mayhem. He wound up talking to Scout occasionally, the younger man just sitting himself down when Sniper was making a campfire or otherwise sitting outside his camper and doing things. In return, sometimes he tried to say hello to Scout when he passed him in the rec room. But then Sniper had suddenly been faced with what he thought was the perfect opportunity.

He’d been out doing his shopping, having headed to a bigger town to get some more specific things that he needed that weren’t easy to find elsewhere, when he’d seen it. The energy drinks Scout chugged like water most of the time, big palettes’ worth of them. Three different flavors, although he’d only ever seen Scout drinking two.

And next to them, the same three again. He walked closer, pondering if maybe Scout would appreciate getting a bulk package of the drinks instead of having to do a twice-weekly run to the store in town to buy a few six-packs. And he’d picked up one of the packs, looked it over, and noticed a little blurb written on it.

“Caffeine-free!”

The plan hit him almost immediately, and he moved to start piling cans into the cart he’d gotten.

From there it was simple—a trick he’d learned years and years before from an oddball “friend” to sneak alcohol into concerts. Sealed drinks being all that was allowed, he learned how to open cans and close them again without it looking any different. It was the work of an afternoon to empty out the cans of _Bonk!_ into the sand (both the Cola and the Fruit Punch flavors just to cover all his bases) and replace them with the caffeine-free versions. Then he waited for the next time they did a supply run, and put it in with the rest of the groceries.

But then, things got… strange.

Scout was fine that first day, a Friday, not particularly groggy at all. During the lunch break in the middle of the day he chugged a good bit more of the soda than even he was usually known for, and didn’t eat anything else, but otherwise acted about the same.

By Monday, things had taken a significant dive.

He first noticed that Scout was almost late. That was extremely strange for him. Scout was usually among the first to report, and would mingle and pester the rest of the team. But instead, he was dashing in five minutes before they were headed onto the field, sleeves not even rolled properly and one shoe untied, looking completely out of it. He stammered an apology, then set about fixing his whole situation.

Through his scope, Sniper kept cursory track over the team so he’d be able to know whether someone could feasibly be passing by or if it was a spy. And what he saw of Scout was funny for a little bit, but quickly grew worrying, and then terribly guilt-inducing.

Scout was fully off his game, running erratically but in a way that was clearly unintentional, getting his attention diverted by sounds of gunfire only to miss the sounds much closer to him. His chatter on the comms was limited, and Sniper caught sight of him getting gunned down over and over and over again.

When the mid-day break was called, a bit earlier than usual, his first sighting of the kid since that morning was of him sitting on a crate, elbows on his knees, head held tight in his hands, talking quietly to Medic, who looked extremely concerned about the situation. Within a few moments the scene had brought over Engie and Demo, and everyone looked fairly grim.

Spy noted the scene happening, then glanced at Sniper, and his posture went rigid at Sniper’s expression. Presumably it was one of guilt, because that’s what was rapidly overtaking Sniper.

“What did you do?” Spy asked sharply, voice a hiss.

“Nothing,” Sniper said quickly, defensively.

All at once, Spy was stood just behind him, a hand on his shoulder, the other holding a knife in the bend of his back, cutting through the stitch of his vest and pressing hard enough to make Sniper’s heart skip a few beats. “Interesting answer. Because our local little idiot has been feeling horribly, terribly under the weather _all day_, and this is rapidly becoming the sort of problem that gets him in trouble with _noteworthy individuals_,” he said, voice the kind of lighthearted that made Sniper aware that he was probably about to be killed if he so much as stuttered. Then the weight of what Spy was saying to him sunk in, and he paled in realization. Scout could get in very real trouble for such a drop in numbers. Very, very real trouble. And in their line of business, bad things usually happened to those who got in trouble with their employers. “I just found it interesting, the way you were staring at him just now.”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” he managed, voice hoarse. “Really, I didn’t!”

“I’m going to ask you this exactly once, bushman,” Spy said, voice low now. “What. Did. You. Poison him with?”

A pause. “Oh! No, no, mate, you’ve got it wrong, I—I didn’t poison him! I just—“

The slightest bit of additional pressure from the knife.

“Really! I just switched out that caffeine nonsense he drinks for the same stuff but without the caffeine. It was just supposed to be a prank, I, I didn’t think he would get like _this_. Figured he’d be a bit groggy and that’s all!”

Spy swore to himself under his breath. “You’re an _idiot_, bushman,” he hissed. He shoved Sniper a step forward. “Go explain to him what you did. _Now._”

Sniper did walk over.

Medic had moved away to talk quietly with Demo, but Engie was still there, sitting next to Scout, a comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked up as Sniper approached, giving him a little, worried smile.

“Er,” Sniper said, fidgeting with his hands for a second before just sticking his thumbs into his pockets. “Scout, can I talk to you for a mo’?”

Scout hummed out a little noise like agreement.

Sniper glanced at Engie again, who took a moment before he realized what Sniper meant and went to get up and give them space. He gave Scout one more pat on the shoulder before he went.

Sniper took his place, hands to himself. “Er. So… you’re not doin’ so well,” Sniper tried.

Scout groaned, shoulders sinking further. “I dunno what the fuck is wrong. This shouldn’t be happening,” he said, voice quiet. “I’m fuckin’ dying over here.”

“Yeah?” Sniper asked, guilt corroding at him quicker by the minute.

“My head hurts,” Scout started. “I feel like I’m gonna throw up. My hands won’t stop shaking and I can barely reload a gun. I didn’t sleep at all last night or the night before that or the night before _that_ and I can’t get a good breath in and I feel like I’m five fuckin’ seconds away from freaking out. Just the usual gunshots and screaming make me start shaking even worse and basically I fuckin’ hate everything right now an’ wanna die. I felt like shit all weekend too but it’s just getting worse and worse.”

Sniper swallowed hard.

“And I dunno what the fuck the issue is, I—I only ever start gettin’ shaky and gross feeling whenever I go without getting caffeine for a few days, and, and I’ve drank like three cans and kept ‘em down and everything and I—I dunno the fuck else to do,” Scout said, and there was an underlying kind of distress, dismay, panic, misery that made Sniper fold in on himself.

“Didn’t realize… you needed it that much,” Sniper said carefully.

Scout sighed, his breath leaving him almost explosively. “Yeah, because I didn’t want nobody to know. Only the Doc was supposed to know, because we kept tryin’ all kinds of meds but none of ‘em worked right, and we figured out if I just drink a fuck ton of caffeine it works better than most meds. So he found some stuff with a ridiculous amount of the stuff and now I drink it all the time or I can’t think right or do anything.” A second sigh, and Scout looked like he was trying to melt and sink into the ground. “And now everybody knows that I’m a fuckin’ idiot who can’t do shit or think right without drinkin’ enough liquid energy to give a bear a heart attack. And I’m maybe having the worst day ever and I just wanna go curl up and down half a bottle of headache meds and try and sleep until everything stops sucking so much.”

Sniper was pretty sure he was going to keel over dead.

“But hey,” Scout said, a dreary, sarcastic attempt at optimism in his voice, and lifted his head enough to look at Sniper, and he hadn’t noticed earlier, but his face was pale and his eyes had bags and circles under them that may as well have been bruises they were so dark. “At least you’re over here. Talkin’ to me. That’s really not like you. Good to know you give that much of a shit about me to come listen to me whine.”

Sniper had to look away, squeeze his eyes shut.

“Anyways, you said you wanted to talk to me?” Scout asked, putting on a terribly brave face despite how objectively horrible he was feeling.

“It was me.”

A pause. Sniper couldn’t look up. “What?”

“It was me. I switched your _Bonk!_ out for some caffeine-free rubbish.”

Another, different pause. “You _what?_” Scout asked, voice quiet.

“It was meant to just be a prank,” Sniper said, head falling to his hand. “I thought you’d get all drowsy for a little while, be sleepy and a bit off your game and confused. I didn’t mean to make you feel this sick, and… and I’m sorry.”

Silence for a good minute or so. “Snipes, I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

Sniper nodded. “I’d deserve it,” he conceded, glum.

“I’m gonna fucking _kill you_.” Sniper got shoved, and was sent sprawling on the dirt. “You _fuck!_ I can’t believe you!”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Sniper tried, sitting up.

“God _damn_ it if you weren’t so cute I’d _break_ you right now!” Scout exclaimed, bat in hand, red-faced and positively fuming.

“You think I’m cute?” Sniper asked, a bit surprised.

“_Not_ the topic of conversation right now! You’re a _bastard!_”

Sniper fell back onto the dirt, staring up at the sky. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“You owe me,” Scout declared.

“I know.”

“_Big_ time,” Scout added.

“I know.”

“You’re takin’ me out after we clock out today and you’re buying me more soda and then you’re getting me dinner,” Scout finished.

“That sounds fair.’

“…_Fuck_ you,” Scout said once more before he stormed off.

Sniper remained on the ground for another few moments, silent.

“…Cute?” he repeated to himself quietly.


	9. Sniper/Scout, "You're holding back."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: If you're still doing this prompts, maybe 89 for Speeding Bullet?"
> 
> okay so MAYBE i went slightly overboard with this. (warnings for basically 4k words about knives)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #89: You're holding back.

Scout didn’t often make requests of Sniper. Of the whole team, really. He didn’t like asking for favors without offering an immediate kind of repayment—take his turn making the team meal and he’d take your next one, let him borrow your penknife to open a can and you could have some of the can’s contents. Simple one-to-one trade-offs. And half the time someone asked _him_ for help, Sniper noticed that Scout didn’t really ask for repayment, not unless it was truly a big ask.

So this was strange, which told Sniper that this was either important, or a means to an end, with accepting the request something he likely wouldn’t risk if it was just about any other teammate making it. But it was Scout, whose meanest trick he’d ever intentionally pulled on Sniper being offhandedly mentioning “updog” in front of the whole team during a meal, which prompted Sniper to ask what that was. And then to get him again a few days later with “a matterbaby”, but he did apologize for that one a few moments later. So Sniper figured he was probably okay.

The request was fairly straightforward. Scout had been watching Sniper wipe his knife down of blood after a humiliation round between matches and asked fairly casually whether Sniper could teach him how to fight with a knife.

“Sure,” Sniper shrugged without thinking too hard about it.

Scout paused, stilling where he’d been rocking on his feet. “Nah, seriously,” he said, a bit insistent. “I mean it. I really wanna learn.”

Sniper looked over, and Scout glanced down at his own feet. “Why?” Sniper asked.

“I dunno, I mean… I can deal with my bat,” he said, hefting the heavy slab of wood in question from one shoulder to the other. “And I can throw a punch—learned that _real_ quick back home—but uh, I can’t do knives. Like, hand-knives, those I’m okay at, I did knife-fights sometimes with these other punks from the baseball team, but the big knives like that I’ve got no practice with. And Demo’s too busy to teach me how to use swords, and Spy knows how to fence but he’s also basically the worst person I know, so, figured I’d ask you. If you ain’t too busy, I mean.”

Sniper considered for a few moments, looked over the knife in his hands, glanced at Scout in his periphery. Scout had started fidgeting with his grip tape.

“I don’t really have any practice weapons,” Sniper said after those moments. “And I’m not exactly a teacher. We’d be using real knives, and you’d essentially be learning by doing.”

“I’m cool with that,” Scout shrugged.

“Might get hurt. Things can go south awful fast when there’s weapons in untrained hands,” Sniper warned next.

“Then we get Hardhat to set up a dispenser,” Scout chirped, lighting up a bit as he realized Sniper still wasn’t saying no.

Sniper paused, considering for a few moments longer, before he sighed, resigned. “Alright, fine. But,” he cut in as Scout started to fist-pump, “I’ve got packing to do for the next base transfer, we’re due to be kicking off any day now. It’ll have to wait until we’re settled again. Might even have to wait until we transfer back to the home base depending on how long we’re out.”

“Okay,” Scout agreed quickly. “Just tell me whenever, man, I don’t ever make plans I can’t drop.” A pause, then Scout spit in his palm, extended his hand. “Shake on it. We got a deal?”

Sniper mirrored him, and their palms met with a wet _slap_. “Deal.”

* * *

The next transfer was four days later, to Sawmill, which was unseasonably sunny and warm within a few days of their arrival, the sky much clearer than it usually was in late spring. That meant Truckie called “bug season” and forced Soldier to start keeping his raccoons _outside_ of their main basing area for fear of fleas and ticks. Unfortunately for Sniper, that meant he could no longer leave food alone for any longer than five minutes outside or else the raccoons would flock to it like vultures to carrion. And he himself could barely stay outside for longer than a few hours before mosquitoes left him pock-marked with bites.

But even with all those irritations happening, it was only a few days before he was approaching Scout.

Scout appeared to be busy trying to bust down the wall of one of the sheds by bouncing his baseball off of it over and over again, but stopped when he caught sight of Sniper, eyes lighting up.

“Yo, knife time?” Scout asked.

“Not if you call it ‘knife time’, no,” Sniper replied, ticking his head back in a motion for Scout to follow him and beginning to walk towards his camper. Scout was following at his heels in a second.

Sniper ducked inside his camper for a moment and returned with two knives, each in their respective sheath. He handed one to Scout, the other sheath going on his own back. “There. Feel free to carry that along the way to start gettin’ used to the weight of it,” Sniper instructed, striking out towards a shed a few dozen meters away from where his camper was parked. “I picked up some health kits from Resupply. Shouldn’t need a whole dispenser yet, not today at least.”

“What’re we doin’ today?” Scout said, falling into step next to Sniper, hefting the knife in his hand.

“You’ll be learnin’ how to handle the blade without takin’ your own damn arm off,” Sniper replied.

“Okay, cool, but like, when do I learn how to fight with ‘em?” Scout asked.

Sniper ducked into the shed and returned with a box of scrap wood blocks, dropping it on the ground next to the health kits. “When I’m sure you won’t bloody well hurt y’self,” he replied. “First things first. You’re holdin’ it wrong.”

The first half hour was spent just stood across from Scout, showing him how to hold a knife for a swing and stab versus a chop, how to hold for a block, and how to stand to keep his legs and free arm out of the way.

“Why’s this knife different than yours?” Scout asked as Sniper moved his elbow for him into a better position, eyeing the knife on the table that stood against the shed.

“Mine’s more for the hunting portion of hunting. Skinning animals and the like, and to kill them when I don’t got projectiles. Yours is for the travel part. Cutting a path, gettin’ a shelter up, firewood, that sort of thing. Bulkier, less likely to dent. More a tool than a weapon, really. Better for practice. God’s sake, what’d I _just_ tell you about keepin’ your other arm back?”

Scout self-corrected before Sniper had the chance to do it for him. “That why you call it that? You use it to _actually_ whack bushes?” Scout half-laughed.

“Yes. Stand higher.”

He raised his stance a bit, having fallen during the perpetual shifting that Scout seemed to be incapable of preventing himself from doing. “I mean, I _guess_ that makes sense,” he said, half to himself. “You still say it weird, though.”

“Well maybe _you_ sound weird to _me_, ever consider that?” Sniper replied.

By the time Scout could shift into and out of a proper stance, Sniper was feeling a bit more relaxed, partly due to the easy banter that seemed to flow between the two of them. They fell into something of a rhythm, and it made Sniper gradually feel less self-conscious about giving instructions.

“Right,” Sniper finally said, moving back to the box of wood scraps. “Next we’ll see where you’re already at in terms of handling a knife.”

He picked up a little rectangular block about the size of an egg and threw it overhand at Scout.

He could see the instant that reflexes kicked in, and in a moment Scout had shifted out of the correct stance and into something lower, swinging the flat of the blade like it was his baseball bat. With the simultaneous sound of a _clang_ and _clack_ of the knife and chunk colliding, the piece of wood was sent sailing out towards the horizon line.

A second of silence before Sniper sighed and Scout started to flush.

“Uh,” Scout started to say. “I’m guessing that I fucked that up.”

Sniper shot him a look over the top of his sunglasses. Scout’s gaze fell to the floor. “We’ll work on it,” Sniper said, tone flat.

The remainder of the time they spent before sundown was Scout learning how to handle swinging at something accurately using a weapon with a maximum thickness of about three millimeters instead of one with a diameter of sixty-seven. Scout was at least hitting some of the blocks by the time it started getting too dark to see very well, and swore to come back again the next day to keep at it.

And he did. It was slow going, took a day or so, but he did. He learned to hit things nearly every single time, and the times he didn’t end up with a piece of wood solidly skewered on the blade, it’d glance off the side. Sniper shifted to small slabs of wood about the size of paper, to give Scout practice using the point of the knife in the motion of a thrust rather than just the edge to swing and chop. Only the first one and a few after ended up giving Scout bruising along his arms as he missed, and by the time a week had nearly passed, Scout could handle a knife competently.

“You’re probably one of the better teachers I’ve had,” Scout commented lightly, pushing the plate of wood off the knife, a heel bracing the little plate while he pulled with both arms.

“How d’you figure?” Sniper asked, fighting back the smile that tried to pull at his face.

Scout glanced up at him, grinning in that lopsided way that he did, his distinctive buck teeth poking out for a moment. “Haven’t thwacked me upside the head with a ruler yet,” he replied cheekily.

It took Sniper a good second to wrestle down that smile, and to push the amusement from his voice. “Still might hit you with a slab of wood if you’re not careful,” he warned, frisbee’ing another plate towards Scout.

A simple lunge and upward thrust and Scout had caught it dead center. “I’ll be careful.”

A necessity Sniper found to using chunks of scrap wood as target practice was that the knives went dull far faster than they did when going into flesh. He spent the seventh day of their training week showing Scout how to maintenance a knife to keep it in good condition. Scout sat next to him on the ground and watched carefully as he demonstrated cleaning the blade off, sharpening it, and how to re-wrap the hilt when the leather or tape started to wear thin. For Scout’s knife, which was made of iron, he showed how to polish and prevent rust from forming on the blade, and explained what to do if rust did form.

Scout was a surprisingly attentive listener during his impromptu lecture, which was both good and bad, because Sniper kept finding himself getting a bit distracted and he was sure it was very noticeable. Because he’d never really been close enough to Scout to notice, but there under the scent of heavy-duty bugspray and sweat and the lingering hints of blood and gunpowder that clung to all of them just as stubbornly as their regrets, he could smell that apparently Scout used a different kind of soap than the general-issue type most of the others had. He fancied that it might be something with mint, and it mingled well with the smell of pine that permeated the air around them.

The few times he lost his train of thought, Scout prompted him again, until at some point the lesson gave way to a discussion about the kinds of things Sniper would eat when he was out walkabout, doing his hunting and tracking before mercenary times, and that too gave way to tales of his adventures until crickets ushered them away and back to their respective living areas to sleep. Sniper had no clue whether Scout did, but he knew he himself barely slept a wink, too busy tumbling words over and over in his head, still feeling both guilty and sated by the fleeting memory of the way it felt when Scout’s arm kept brushing against his own with each wayward gesture.

The next time Scout came around, the box of wood didn’t come out of the shed. Instead, there was a dispenser humming not far away.

“Holy shit,” Scout said, eyes widening in half-time to his grin, teeth on full display. “Time to fake-fight?”

“To try, at least,” Sniper said, tossing him his sheath, and it was caught with only a bit of a flinch on Scout’s part. “I’ll teach you to block from either side and above, then to parry, then I’ll let you try havin’ a go at me.”

Scout’s eyebrows shot up, and Sniper rolled his eyes.

“By which I mean _swinging a knife,_” he clarified.

“I was about to say,” Scout laughed, tossing his sheath carefully aside along with his bag. “Damn, didn’t even take you to dinner first.”

Further hilarious commentary from Scout was put on hold for a little bit while Sniper adjusted his arms up into a block from the left, then the right, showing him which part of the palm to place against the flat of the blade so it wouldn’t cut into his hand, but also wouldn’t be knocked aside to give way to the ever-important meat of his head and shoulders. He had Scout try again with his non-dominant hand, and then he took a few very careful pitifully slow and very light swings from assorted directions to give Scout ample time to shift into the correct position to block him.

“Why do I get the feelin’ you’re just enjoying makin’ me wave my arms around?” Scout asked when Sniper’s swings made him move in a slow arch to keep blocking.

“Why do _I_ get the feelin’ your stance is wrong again?”

Scout laughed even as he shifted, and Sniper took an extra fraction of a second before he figured out the location of his next swing.

Parrying was simpler, relying on a similar motion as to when Scout deflected attacks with his bat. Sniper had to chide him a few times for his inclination to move out of the way rather than redirecting the weapon, but to be fair, he figured the majority of the time Scout would indeed be fast enough to get back in time.

The clouds were going pink by the time Scout had parrying and blocking effectively down to a mere half-speed below normal without mistakes, so Sniper postponed Scout attacking until the next day, instead moving to show Scout the best places to stab to try and take enemies down quickly.

“For a chop, you’re nearly just as effective landing them on the upper shoulder as you are the neck,” Sniper said, pointing to various points on himself as he spoke. “If you sever the muscles near the neck, you can cripple the ability to counter-attack as well as panic your opponent. Swinging is more aimed to maneuver your opponent and their weapon to where you want them, but if you’re going for damage, the knees and elbows are a fair shot, as well as the waist if they leave their waist open enough to attack.”

“Can this thing crack a rib?” Scout asked, looking over his knife critically.

“No. But you can do a fair bit worse with a thrust. That’s where you’ll get be real hurt in. You’ll do well hitting anywhere in the abdomen, but the cleanest hit will be up through the gut and into the ribcage. You can puncture a lung, maybe even sever the spine, and if you’re lucky you can get the heart.” Sniper pantomimed the motion with an invisible knife on Scout, taking hold of his shoulder to do so. “Now, as I’m saying this, keep in mind that the same goes when a knife is headed towards _you_. Never let someone else get in this close with a knife of this size unless it’s on your terms and you’re able to get right back out before they strike back. You’re quick enough to manage it. That’s what this reach on a blade is good for, keeping someone at bay until you know you can hit them where it hurts. Careful of getting boxed in, keep your distance.”

Scout nodded, clearly trying his best to sort all of the information away in his head so he could remember it. “What if they’re keepin’ their body safe?”

“Up into the underside of the jaw will work fine if you think you can reach without leavin’ yourself exposed and vulnerable,” Sniper said, tapping at the underside of Scout’s jaw with the hand that had pantomimed the knife before, and he got a whiff of mint under the smell of extra-strength bugspray, and he froze.

They were standing awfully close to each other. Scout had to tilt his head up considerably to look at Sniper in the eye. The knife was held almost limply in his hand, as of threatening to drop any second. His lips were slightly parted, eyes wide, almost sparkling with the way that the light filtered through his eyelashes. Buck teeth.

Sniper cleared his throat lightly, glancing to one side as he took a generous step back. “If your opponent is considerably taller or shorter than you, don’t bother tryin’ to go for the under-jaw,” he said, voice stiff, eyes locked on the ground not far off. “Just go for a chop. Even if it’s not the best, it’ll still do. Just remember to get back out again. And don’t let go of your knife unless it’s an absolute last resort, and if you do, just try and escape. Unarmed you won’t stand a chance, and you can always just go get another knife. Not worth gettin’ skewered for.”

“Yeah, okay,” Scout said. A pause. “Gettin’ late. Anything else you wanna say, or do you wanna call it a night?”

“Think we can call it,” Sniper nodded.

“Okay,” Scout said, and his voice was only a mite less chipper than usual. “See ya tomorrow, Snipes.”

He almost didn’t.

Sniper woke up the next morning to a light drizzle coming down, largely overshadowed by high winds. By the time the match ended, the rain was heavy enough to leave everyone soaked only moments after they left Respawn, and by the time Scout was due to practice, it was nearly impossible to see through, thunder shaking the ground, winds thrashing the trees wildly and reminding Sniper why there were only pines other coniferous trees around rather than deciduous ones. Nothing much else could withstand the weather.

Except Scout could, apparently, because a knock came on Sniper’s door.

He jumped up and dashed to open it quickly, and saw Scout on his stoop, shivering and soaked to the bone, clutching his hat in one hand and the frame of Sniper’s door in the other to keep balance despite the way the wind wanted to rip him away.

“Sup,” was all Scout could say before he was yanked inside and the door was closed again.

“Bloody maniac, bleedin’ _lunatic_,” Sniper chided under his breath, bustling around the camper and slamming cabinets open and shut to gather towels as quickly as he could. “Hell were you thinkin’, headed out here in a storm like this?”

Scout, who was still shivering water onto the floor and was halfway to making himself an indoor swimming pool, just shrugged. “Figured I’d see if you were still up to spar,” he tried. “Didn’t think so, but wanted to make sure you weren’t out there waitin’ or nothin’.”

Sniper huffed, dropping a towel on Scout’s head and another at his feet before he could further ruin the already-long-trashed carpet. “Of course not, in this weather. I was half worried _you_ would stand out there waitin’, to be honest, but I just glanced out the window, didn’t go _runnin’ out there like I’ve got a death wish_.”

Scout shrugged once more, or maybe just shivered a bit more violently for a second. “Well… I mean, I don’t wanna be weird or nothin’, but, while I’m in here we could try an’ have a lesson,” he suggested lightly.

Sniper rolled his eyes. “As if we’ve got the room. No, mate, no practice today. But you’re not headed back out into that madness, neither. Give us y’hat, I’ll put it aside. You’ll just keep drippin’ unless you towel down your hair.”

Scout handed his hat over, and shook his head like a wet dog. Sniper would’ve complained, but then Scout looked up at him with bright eyes, hair sticking up in every direction.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Scout said.

Sniper turned to set Scout’s hat on the tiny table, then went to try and dig out at least one more towel. “What is it?”

“I could teach _you_ somethin’,” Scout suggested.

Sniper’s hands froze for a few moments before he continued moving. “Such as?”

“Well…” Scout trailed, leaning over to a drawer Sniper had left open, plucking up a tattered old deck of cards. “…Ever played Snap?”

The remainder of the rainy afternoon and evening was Scout teaching him how to play what felt like just about every card game under the sun. He gathered from assorted stories that Scout didn’t have much growing up, but one thing he did have was a deck of cards and a wide pool of people willing to teach a kid how to gamble. At some point Sniper broke out his liquor (nothing great, but not horrible either), and they ended up relaxed, joking, talking easily and loosely and happily. It was hard to tell the time, especially with the downpour outside, but at some point Sniper did get up to grab his watch, and he was almost distressed by how late it was.

“Time for me to head out?” Scout asked at the look on Sniper’s face, shoulders slumping slightly.

“Dunno when the rain’s gonna pick back up,” Sniper shrugged, noting that things had died down, at least for the moment.

“Ah, well,” Scout shrugged, moving to pull his shoes on. “Same time tomorrow? If it’s too bad out for knives, then for cards? Practice or not, I do like hangin’ out with you, y’know.”

“Sounds good,” Sniper said honestly.

It was cards the next day, but the one after that was good (if windy) and they did a bit of review before jumping right into Scout learning to attack.

He was a natural. Even in half-time, Sniper found that Scout’s attacks were focused but felt too random to keep up with, and after only about two days they were ready to try real sparring, a natural back-and-forth rather than letting one of them attack the other for a little while before switching.

And Scout was even more of a natural at that. There were one or two close calls where either of them did a particularly good move, and it was only through the grace of their going slowly and their own reflexes that someone didn’t get hit.

Sniper’s legs ached by the end of their little back-and forth. Scout complained that his arms were similar.

“You’re picking all of this up quick,” Sniper said as they both tended to their weapons briefly before they turned in.

Scout ducked his head slightly, face reddening. “Uh, yeah. Thanks. I’m, uh, just real good at this I guess,” he said.

Sniper didn’t say anything to that for a few moments, just raising an eyebrow, his own motions paused.

“Okay, so _maybe_ I’ve been practicing on my own a little,” Scout finally admitted, shifting, glancing up at Sniper. “I just, I wanna do a good job. So… I did a little extra homework.”

“I could tell,” Sniper said honestly.

“Really? How?” Scout asked, eyes widening.

Sniper grinned. “You’re still getting the stance wrong.”

Sniper had Truckie double-check on the dispenser, and then they were sparring for real, no delayed speed. He informed Scout to just commit, that since he was still so new it wasn’t likely he’d be able to actually hurt Sniper just yet. Scout agreed.

He blocked extremely well, even if he backed off a bit too easily. He seemed to rely on chops a lot and the security that the blade being in front of him provided. Sniper tried to leave either side exposed to get Scout to come out of that shell. It wouldn’t do well to develop a tick like that so early.

Scout took a few swings and nearly unbalanced himself.

“Stance,” he said evenly, backing off a bit to give Scout a moment to fix himself.

“Right,” Scout said, following after him.

Scout attempted a thrust up towards Sniper’s middle. He was parried, and Sniper spun to smack Scout in the waist with the flat of his blade, not hard enough to do real damage.

“Watch your flank,” Sniper instructed, moving back as Scout took a swing to get himself some distance.

“Right,” Scout said, in pursuit.

Swing. Swing. Sniper took two in return, backing Scout up, who didn’t seem quite aware enough of his surroundings until he felt grass under his feet and realized he was only two meters from a wall. Scout swung low at Sniper’s knees, and Sniper backed up a half step before his rebuttal, a chop with both hands, and Scout’s heel hit wood.

“Red,” Sniper said calmly, the pause word, and they both froze. “Awright. You’re backed into a corner. Your back is to the wall. Without looking around, tell me what’s on either side of you.”

Scout kept his eyes locked on Sniper’s face, slightly out of breath. “Dispenser and table are to my left,” he said after a second. “Nothing to my right.”

“Which means your options are what?”

“Either do what seems safest and smartest, which is go right,” Scout said, “or do somethin’ crazy.”

“Unexpected,” Sniper corrected. “Only crazy if you know for sure it’ll never work.”

“Right. I’m good,” Scout said, breath back to normal.

“Good. Green.”

Scout went to thrust up towards Sniper’s jaw and instead fell, rolling between Sniper’s legs.

By the time Sniper had sorted out in his head what all had just happened, Scout was behind him, and he swung his knife as he turned, making Scout step back.

“That would’ve been a good time to try and hit me,” Sniper said, swinging again and circling to get himself away from the wall. “You’re holding back.”

“Yeah, because I don’t wanna kill you on accident,” Scout said, backing up as Sniper thrust towards his chest, only barely parrying in time to keep a knife out of his sternum.

“You won’t kill me,” Sniper replied easily, taking a swing, backing Scout up farther and farther as the runner tried to figure out how to get back on the offense. “Go on. Give me your best shot.”

Scout swung his blade to meet Sniper’s in the air with force, surprising him, sending his arm wide and leaving his chest wide open. In the span of a second, Scout had a hand on Sniper’s shoulder, and had the flat of his knife pressing against Sniper’s upper stomach and chest.

“Checkmate,” he said, so terribly, wonderfully, horribly, incredibly, awfully, perfectly proud of himself, buck teeth, mint, smile ticking that much further upwards, weight shifting, eyes glittering, and Sniper kissed him.

Overhead, the wind ruffled through the trees, making each individual needle shiver, bringing a few droplets of water to collide uselessly with the pines and the ground. Sniper pulled back away, inhaling, exhaling with the way the branches swayed.

Scout’s knife dropped to the ground. His eyes were alight with wonder.

Sniper didn’t even try to hold back a little laugh. He’d tasted like spearmint.


	10. Sniper/Scout, Spy&Scout, "I don't understand."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Uh, 7: Speeding Bullet/Spydad fic based (if you don't mind) on that iconic scene from 22 Jump Street plz?"
> 
> anon you’re a fucking genius. not gonna go word for word but that’s just an incredible scene as a basis (warnings for just SO much cursing and some extremely saucy implications, but no actual saucy scenes)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #7: I don't understand.

Stumbling into breakfast ten minutes later than he usually did earned Sniper some glances, which quickly transformed into stares.

Shuffling to the coffee pot and not even bothering to check what brand was in it, Sniper poured himself a cup. His shirt, the same shirt he wore the previous day, was rumpled halfway to hell, collar sitting all wrong and sleeves half-pushed onto his elbows. His boxers were equally mussed up, and as Sniper tipped his head back to chug his mug of coffee, hair sticking up in every direction, Heavy and Medic glanced at each other with raised eyebrows as a bright red mark under his ear became fully visible. Pyro was clearly trying their damndest to further muffle a laugh. Sniper just rubbed at his eyes, clearly still half-asleep.

Sniper plopped down in one of the two empty seats left at the table, the one to the right of Demo, who had to bury his face in his arm to keep from laughing, his shoulders shaking wildly, as the room got a view of his neck under his collar, still unbuttoned, which appeared to have been attacked by a wild animal.

Sniper didn’t notice the barely-stifled laughs of almost everyone else around the table. He also didn’t notice who was sitting directly across from him and looked about five seconds from committing the real kind of murder or exploding.

“Good morning,” Spy said, voice perfectly even, facade of calm almost perfectly intact except for the various muscles in his face twitching with hardly-repressed rage.

“Mmhmm,” Sniper hummed, voice slightly hoarse, head falling to rest on his arms.

Further chuckling from the table. Engie tried to hide his smile behind his mug, glancing at Spy, whose rage was somehow still growing.

“So Scout is late,” Spy observed neutrally.

“Mmm,” Sniper agreed, blinking at his coffee cup a few times before burrowing into his forearms.

“Any idea where he might be?” Spy asked, voice the kind of perfect calm that nobody in the world used.

Sniper’s head slowly lifted, revealing a mask of horror. He glanced around the table, suddenly fully awake, and for the first time noticed the way the whole team seemed to be mere seconds from collapsing into laughter.

Demo, still nursing a hangover, suddenly connected that last pair of dots, and started laughing in earnest. “Aye, finally got around to it, did ya?” he cheered, knocking his elbow against Sniper’s, who tried to repress his own grin under his coffee mug. “Took ya long enough, Mundy!”

“Stuff it, Tavish,” Sniper replied back easily, rolling his eyes, not without fondness. “Not anyone’s business what goes on in my bedroom.”

Heavy needed to gently hit Medic on the arm as the doctor almost collapsed under the force of trying not to laugh. Spy was going beet red under what little skin his mask showed of his face. He was clenching his fists so hard the leather of his gloves creaked. Neither of the pair across the table from him noticed.

“Wait, really?! Thought you two just had a pash, you’re tellin’ me—“

“_Leave it_, Tavish,” Sniper said, shaking his head to himself with a little grin.

“Can’t hardly! One’a my best mates gets with another of ‘em, can’t expect me to tone it down!” Demo protested. “And that’s not hardly an answer! Yes or no?”

“As if I’d say yes here in front of everyone,” Sniper huffed.

Demo was off and laughing again, rocking back in his chair with the force of it. “Damn well right! Up top, you saucy assassin you!”

Sniper took the high-five, his reluctance act slipping for a moment and showing that he was indeed clearly rather proud of himself.

Engie’s willpower cracked for a moment, collapsing forward with a short wail of laughter in his place on one side of Spy. Suddenly Spy’s hand was on the inside of his own suit jacket, and Engie hurried to take his shoulder as he tried to stand. “He doesn’t know, Spook, c’mon now,” he protested quickly even as he continued laughing, “he doesn’t understand!”

Spy shook him off, and leaned both hands on the table before him, cigarette case in one of them.

“What? What doesn’t he know?” Demo asked, looking over at Spy, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t understand,” Sniper agreed. “What are you lot still laughing about? What’s funny?”

Spy set his jaw, taking a deliberate breath to calm himself. “Bushman, being that I hate you more than every member of the other team combined, and that likewise you have no particular fondness of me, there is something that I believe you should know, should you decide to continue this behavior,” Spy said stiffly.

“Yeah?” Sniper asked, mirth fading a bit.

Spy opened his cigarette case, maintaining a venomous eye contact with Sniper as he fished through the slips of paper that made up the space behind the cigarettes themselves. No, not paper—photographs, Sniper realized as Spy slapped down two photos on the tabletop in front of him and Demo.

One, the one on the left, was a picture of Spy, a woman, and a baby. Spy looked largely the same, albeit a bit more lively, even in the faded photograph. A phrase in French was written at the bottom, and while Sniper had no clue what it said, Demo hummed in confusion, glancing up at Spy, who looked stony.

The second photo was something else—a picture of a boy, surely not even in his teens yet, wearing a baseball uniform, grinning widely at the person holding the camera. A distinctive pair of big, buck teeth and slightly-too-large ears were what really rang a bell in the back of Sniper’s mind, and he suddenly realized who the person in the photo was, and through a few more leaps of logic, what is meant that Spy had these two photos with him at all times.

He went white as a sheet, staring up at Spy with a horror unlike anything he’d ever felt before. A muscle in Spy’s jaw ticked.

It took Demo another few moments, his hangover fighting him all along the way. But suddenly he understood, and he was out of his seat in an instant, positively beaming.

“HOLY _CHRIST_,” Demo shouted, “SNIPER FUCKED SPY’S SON!”

Sniper was frozen in much the same way that most prey animals froze in the moment before they were killed. Spy appeared to be earnestly trying to murder him with a stare, and those around the table couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t manage it.

In the mean time, Demo had started in on some almost hysterical laughter, and a good portion of the rest of the team was following behind him.

“SNIPER FUCKED SPY’S SON! LADS, SNIPER FUCKED SPY’S SON!” Demo repeated over and over, taking a lap of the table and high-fiving everyone in turn. “HE FUCKED SPY’S _SON!_ HIS _SON!!!_ SWEET SHITE—“

“Understand that every time he shouts it,” Spy intoned to Sniper below the sound of Demo and the team hooting and hollering and making a ruckus, “I will kill you one more time, each more painful than the last.”

Sniper was still frozen, and therefore didn’t reply.

“LAD, YOU _BRAGGED_,” Demo insisted, shaking Sniper by the shoulders for emphasis. “YOU _BRAGGED_ ABOUT FUCKIN’ HIS SON, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! RIGHT ‘ERE ACROSS FROM HIS EGGS! YOU FUCKED HIS _SON_ LAD! YOU _HIGH FIVED ME OVER IT!_”

Spy drew a pistol from within his jacket, putting it on the table next to his cigarette case.

Demo cleared his throat, sitting back down. “Not funny. Not funny at all. Very serious,” he amended, voice quiet. “Very serious situation.”

“I, er,” Sniper began, eyeing the gun on the table. “I feel the need to clarify, that’s not what happened.”

Spy raised an eyebrow. Demo blinked. The remainder of the team followed suit, each recovering quickly from their own laughter. “What? What d’you mean, lad?”

“The, er, the other…” He spun his finger in a circle, then thunked his forehead against the surface of the table, scratching idly at the hickey beneath his ear. “Other way around.”

A beat of complete silence before utter pandemonium, and the first of several times that Spy killed Sniper following the incident.


	11. Sniper/Scout, "Take off your shirt."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 49-"Take off your shirt.” for SniScout?? :3c"
> 
> bet yall think i’d get saucy, joke’s on you, instead i got sad. (post-comics in the tf2 timeline, warnings for traumatized boys)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #49: Take off your shirt.

Sniper didn’t previously hang out in the watchtower so much. He was more used to hanging out in and around his camper. But a lot of things changed when he went home and found his parents dead. Maybe too many.

The watchtower, though, it was nice. He’d gotten quite a few things up there for the sake of comfort. A cooler, a mattress for when he couldn’t stand sleeping in the camper, a shoddy table and some empty crates for chairs, blankets and tarps. A stack of magazines (both ammo and reading material), one of the dimestore books he’d picked up however many years ago that he could practically recite cover to cover, and a few packs of cigarettes as well as a lighter. He hadn’t smoked much back Before—always thought it was terrible sniping etiquette. The glowing end of a cigarette was a dead giveaway to the position of one’s head. But he’d picked up the habit around the same time he realized the phantom pains in his chest probably wouldn’t be going away any time soon.

He liked it up in the watchtower. Closed space and all. Quiet. The addition of the various furniture and the like just gave him a good excuse to keep staying up there.

He probably couldn’t have dealt with getting all those things up there alone. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

Scout took to hanging out with Sniper, and was happy for the extra work to do. He said he needed to be kept busy, even more than he had Before. Sniper didn’t question it. They’d all developed habits. He didn’t call out Scout on the way he’d started crossing his arms more, sitting with his back to the wall. The way he clearly didn’t enjoy being alone, always perched himself near the window. In return, Scout didn’t ask why Sniper hardly slept in his camper anymore, why Sniper stayed away from water.

They didn’t talk about it. They just didn’t.

There were a few things they’d broken silence about, at least a little bit. Mainly their shared complaints about having to do the whole routine Medic assigned them with each of their wounds, a salve that needed to be reapplied every day to try and help fade their scarring a little bit.

They took to something of a routine. An excuse for Scout to not be left alone for too long. A reason to make Sniper talk to someone for a period of time; he knew he’d gone back into his shell over the course of all of those months alone in that too-empty house, and probably needed the human interaction, or else he’d end up right back in his hermitage. Scout was nice enough to inform him that he appreciated his company fairly regularly, so at least there was that. Unless Scout was just trying to be polite. Sniper tried not to think about it too hard.

Regardless.

Generally the routine would go about the same. But today, Scout was a bit late. It only took a few moments to understand why.

“Hey,” Scout said, pulling himself up from the ladder in the same way he always did, favoring his right side as he crested the edge. “Sorry I’m late. Got some chips.”

Sniper caught the bag when it was tossed to him, and Scout settled on the windowsill as he looked them over. “These all for me?”

“I mean, if you want. Not that hungry,” Scout shrugged.

Sniper nodded, put the bag on the ground by his leg. He wasn’t that hungry either. He was never sure if it was for the same reason as most of the others.

“Well, seein’ that I’m late an’ all, wanna just cut right to it?” Scout asked, half a sigh.

“May as well,” Sniper shrugged. “Take your shirt off.”

Scout started pulling himself free of his shirt as Sniper went to pick up the tube of balm from the table.

Sniper could pretty well handle treating his own scars, what with them all being on his front and the underside of his biceps. But Scout could only handle some of his own, given how it curved awkwardly around his side and a bit up his back. And he added that since he couldn’t really feel much of the area around where the worst of it was, it was hard to do the application of the scar treatment… _stuff_. So he’d asked Sniper, nervously, eyes averted, if he could maybe help. So he did.

Even now, a good few months after What Happened, a good two months after he’d started the little routine of helping Scout, Sniper was still taken aback by the scarring, the wound. It left a nasty pit in Scout’s side, his ribs poking out abruptly beneath his skin from the wound in a way that made Scout look almost sickly, starved. Were they the types to talk about it, Sniper might’ve chided Scout about how visible the ribs on his non-wounded side were, would’ve told him to try not to skip meals. But they weren’t the types, and Sniper wasn’t a hypocrite regardless, so instead Sniper was left to bite back the worry that crested in his chest every time he caught sight of the progressing visibility.

“Okay,” Scout said, lifting his arm and tilting himself so that Sniper could set to work. “My question of the day.”

“Shoot,” Sniper said, warming the lotion-like substance between his hands. This was the other part of their routine—Scout would always bring Sniper a question, something to try and get Sniper to open up a bit. The questions were never invasive, always lighthearted, sometimes even joking. They worked well.

“Do you believe in paranormal and supernatural stuff?”

“Dunno,” Sniper replied, setting to work on the backmost part of the scarring, making sure to try and get the lotion in the worst of the pitting. “Not really sure what counts.”

Scout hummed. “Okay, then what about UFOs and stuff? You believe in those?”

“Yes. Because anything can be an unidentified flying object. That’s just a classification of object. Not somethin’ to be believed in,” Sniper replied.

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“That’s what UFO stands for. Unidentified Flying Object.”

“…Oh. Well, okay then wise guy, how about aliens an’ stuff? You believe in those?”

Sniper started working his way slowly around to Scout’s front, where Scout could probably handle doing this himself, but Sniper did it anyways. “Infinite universe. Assumin’ we’re the only place where life’s happened would be awful cocky.”

Scout huffed a laugh. “Okay, like, _smart_ aliens, though,” he elaborated further.

“Intelligent life?”

“Yeah, that.”

Sniper shrugged. “Hard to say. Probably a good chance of it.” He paused for a moment, putting a hand on Scout’s shoulder to tilt his torso a bit. It was hard for him to doubt much of anything these days, after he’d visited the lost land of New Zealand. “Doubt it’s ever been here, though, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“There was this one just batshit dude I met,” Scout started, the ‘in jail’ modified remaining unsaid. “He kept goin’ off about like, how aliens made the pyramids, and stone hedge—“

“Stonehenge.”

“Yeah, that. And all this other stuff too. Kept sayin’ there was no way anyone could’be built all that stuff, and started goin’ off about Area 51 and all that.”

“What’d he say about Area 51?” Sniper asked, smearing the last of the scarring, the minor stuff near Scout’s navel that was already fading fairly quickly.

“Dunno. That’s around when Spy killed ‘im.”

Unprompted, Sniper got more lotion on his hand, eyeing up the other scar on Scout’s chest. “Lunatic.”

“Who, Spy or the dude?”

“Both.”

The other scar on Scout’s chest, he didn’t talk about. Sniper knew the one down on his side he knew was what left Scout dying in a hallway alone, but this one he was fairly sure was more recent. Shortly after Scout had started visiting Sniper every once and a while, before he asked for help, there’d been a few days where Scout had his upper chest wrapped in gauze and didn’t come by.

It was large, spanning in a wide circle about the size of a dinner plate, right across the middle of Scout’s chest. It had discoloration across parts, crinkled like a burn, pock-marked from Scout picking at it.

Sniper started on that one, and Scout’s gaze fell to one side, aware that Sniper had kind of a thing about eye contact sometimes.

“Uh,” Scout started to say, and Sniper’s fingers tickled with the vibration of him speaking. “Engie was sayin’ somethin’ weird today.”

Sniper hummed in question.

“About…” He hesitated. “About… us all maybe bein’ dismissed. Sent home.”

Sniper faltered, but kept his expression stoic. “Hm. Why?”

“Miss P…” And there was another hesitation, as had been happening pretty much every time Pauling came up in conversation. “…We were kept here because there weren’t much of anyone left except us. But I guess she’s bringin’ on new people.”

Sniper frowned. Hummed again.

“I dunno. He just… mentioned it.” Scout kept staring off to one side. “Where would you be headed?”

“Dunno,” Sniper said. “Home, I suppose.”

“Alone again?”

Sniper hummed in confirmation.

“Think there’d be room there for a friend?”

Sniper looked up at him. Somewhere along the line, Scout had shifted from not looking at him to not _looking at him_.

“You’ve got folks,” Sniper said, not sure how else to say it.

Scout hung his head. “I… I can’t go back there,” he said quietly. “I… I just can’t. I even _think_ about lookin’ my Ma in the eye after all that and I just… I can’t, okay? Just figured it was worth askin’. Not good for you to be out alone like that. Two birds, y’know?”

“You really ought to go see your mum,” Sniper said carefully.

Scout laughed humorlessly. “And tell ‘er what? That her youngest son died and… and…”

They didn’t talk about it. They just didn’t. They didn’t.

“And what?” Sniper asked.

“Doc said it wasn’t real,” Scout managed. “That none’a it was real.”

“Said the same to me,” Sniper replied.

They didn’t talk about it.

“I’m gonna sound fuckin’ insane,” Scout half-laughed, hanging his head further, cradling it in one hand.

“You won’t,” Sniper assured. “C’mon. Tell me.”

Scout didn’t lift his head. “I saw God.”

Silence. “What?”

“I saw God, man. I…” He shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”

Silence. Silence. They didn’t talk about it.

“I saw my parents.”

That got Scout to lift his head, eyes wide. “Huh?”

“My mum and dad. I saw ‘em. Talked to ‘em. Made peace.”

Scout just stared at him.

“There…” Sniper’s eyes fell to Scout’s chest scar. “There’s plenty of room at the house. Back in Oz. You’re welcome to stay there if that’s where I wind up goin’.”

“And if it’s not?” Scout asked, voice as raw as his scar looked.

“Then you’re still welcome to head out with me, if that’s really what you want.”

Scout’s eyes fell, his shoulders sagging in relief. “Thanks,” Scout said quietly.

It was quiet between them for a few seconds. Sniper capped the tube, setting it aside. He picked up a box of cigarettes, pulling one out and setting to light it.

“.I don’t know how long I was layin’ there,” Scout said. “I kinda thought nobody was ever gonna find me. I’m gonna be fuckin’ annoying, I ain’t gonna hardly ever leave you alone.”

Sniper managed to put up a smile. “That a promise?”

Scout laughed. It almost sounded real this time.

Almost.


	12. Sniper/Scout, "Cheating."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["arinmey asked: Oh yeah sniperscout 64 and 68 Make me cry you coward"
> 
> sir i accept your challenge but also this seriously isn’t a happy fic like forreal]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #64: Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything.  
#68: This isn’t what it looks like.

He didn’t know why he did it. He didn’t know. He shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have. It was a mistake, it was stupid, he wasn’t thinking, he’d just messed up, they’d come onto him, he hadn’t seen Scout in a long time, he didn’t intend to let things get so far—he had any number of excuses lined up in his head, but the moment he looked Scout in the eye, they flooded from his brain, just leaving him with the guilt.

Guilt. Guilt. _Guilt_. Scout stared at him, not in the same way he so often did when he saw Sniper in just his tank-top undershirt, this time with a blankness in his expression, a lack of understanding, or maybe an unwillingness to understand. Sniper’s blood was cold, his heart was heavy, his head was all shaken up.

He stared at the mark on Sniper’s neck, distinctive, and most notably not having been there following any of the times the two of them had been together. In his scramble to say something, anything, Sniper said the stupidest thing he’d ever said, hand moving to cover the hickey.

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

As if there was any way it could ever be anything else. Scout was too smart for that. Just about everyone in the world was. His face had contorted with understanding, with disbelief, with anger, with shock, with horror, with a sadness Sniper had never quite seen on him before.

He’d punched Sniper in the face and stormed out the door.

It was the next day. Sniper hadn’t dared to step foot in the base, not knowing what fate would await him. Not knowing what fate he deserved. Not a good one, he was sure.

Sniper heard feet crunching on the gravel outside, and sat up, eyes lighting up.

Scout didn’t knock his familiar _one, two three_ rhythm, just opening the door and walking in. He didn’t look at Sniper, opening one of the drawers without pause or fanfare.

From it, he pulled a few of his shirts. He unslung the backpack from his shoulder and unzipped it, calmly putting them inside.

Sniper’s expression fell.

“Scout?” Sniper asked carefully.

Scout ignored him, moving to the tiny bathroom, pulling his soap and toothbrush and shampoo and towel from the area and putting those similarly into his bag.

Sniper stood, slowly. “…Love?”

Scout didn’t so much as flinch. Next was one of the drawers in the kitchen. He pulled from it a deck of cards, a sketchbook, a bag of pens. From another drawer, a pack of gum, and some assorted knick-knacks that had been living in Sniper’s camper since before the two of them even started dating.

“Love, please look at me,” Sniper said, not proud of how his voice wavered.

Scout didn’t. He moved past Sniper to the bed, picking up a blanket from it, a sleep shirt from the ground, one of his hats. The blanket and shirt were folded before he stuffed them in his bag. He didn’t rush, didn’t hurry, the absolute picture of calm.

“Please, just say something,” Sniper tried, taking a half-step towards him, starting to reach out.

Scout moved past him again, to the space next to the door. He picked up a set of keys from it, calmly working the one to his room off of the ring, and the little bauble that accompanied it as well. It went in his pocket. Then he knelt, tying the strings of a pair of athletic shoes together and slinging those to the backpack. There was another pair of shoes there that received the same treatment.

“Scout, don’t ignore me,” Sniper pleaded.

Scout stood again and moved to the box of records, flipping through them and setting several of them on the counter.

“Can’t we talk about this?” No reply. “Scout?” No reply. “Jeremy—“

Scout moved abruptly to a drawer, opening it with force, shoulders shaking for a moment, and Sniper’s heart sank through the soles of his boots to shatter on the ground when realization hit. He took a photo album from the drawer, flicking through it, starting to take pictures from out of it, tossing them on top of the records.

His throat was tight, threatening to suffocate him. “Please. Please, love. Yell, scream, cry, please, just say something, anything.” Scout’s hands were shaking. “Please. _Love_.”

He put a hand on Scout’s shoulder, and Scout spun to face him for the first time since he’d entered the camper, batting his arm away almost violently, and Sniper’s breath hitched on a sob when he saw Scout’s face.

Scout’s eyes were bloodshot and red, and he had dark circles under them almost deep enough to match Sniper’s black eye. Scout’s eyes flickered over his face, and his breath was shaky, the anger falling away to reveal, for only a moment, a mix of betrayal and hurt and grief and sadness and confusion and _knowing_ that made Sniper’s heart crumble to dust at his feet.

“Anything,” he pleaded under his breath. He went to cup Scout’s cheek.

Scout moved away before it made contact, turning to pick up the stack of records and photos and walking to the door.

There at the threshold, he paused. Only for a moment. He looked back over his shoulder, looked at Sniper, eyes damp, and lost, and for a moment, regretful. Sniper’s own finally overflowed, stinging at the wound Scout had left the previous day, the only time Scout had ever hurt him, in all the time they’d been together. The only time at all.

“Please,” Sniper asked once more, voice quiet. “Anything.”

Scout went to speak, but the breath caught in his throat. His adam’s apple bobbed. He closed his mouth again. The regret faded away to a kind of bitter acceptance, and then Scout was gone. The entire way back to the base, he didn’t look back. Not even once.

It was a mistake. It was just a mistake.


	13. Engineer/Spy, "Take my jacket."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["1merfairy asked: 85 for EngieSpy please, also I'm a sucker for same faction <3"
> 
> as a brief insight into the way stuff is rn i wrote and am posting this before i head to work in the morning and thats probably a commentary on my writing effort idk. (warnings for sappiness)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #85: Take my jacket. It's cold outside.

One of the things Engie simply needed to get used to with Spy was how particular he was about keeping clean.

He didn’t shower with everyone else, Engie was aware. He knew that because he knew the layout of the pipework on the base, and knew that there was another bathroom branching from Spy’s smoking room. He wasn’t sure how one would access it—maybe from the room directly via hidden entrances, maybe from somewhere else nearby. But Spy showered often, and he made trips often into town to get his clothes dry-cleaned and pressed. And when they were stationed away from civilization for a while, he knew Spy kept up the habit, washing and ironing his clothes himself.

That was one thing that did make Engie curious, though. The fact that Spy was so particular about staying pristine, and yet still he so often went to be with Engie in his workshop. Home to grease and oil and sawdust and rust and metal, always smelling faintly of spray paint.

He’d decided that there were a few options to explain what might be going on.

Firstly, that Spy was indeed a cleanly person, and just liked Engie enough to put up with his workspace, aware that he really did enjoy his work and therefore couldn’t be pulled away from it very easily.

Secondly, that perhaps Spy’s cleanliness was a charade, and he didn’t particularly care in any real way, and it was just something used to exude an air of superiority much in the same way his scalding speech and calculated body language did.

Thirdly, Spy’s cleanliness was something enforced in much the same way that a good portion of his secrecy was, that it was part of his job description in a similar way that Soldier’s involved him marching the halls and Sniper spending time in the watchtower and Scout running errands for everyone and Heavy being a peacemaker.

Well, that last one probably wasn’t in Heavy’s job description. He was just like that naturally. Regardless.

He tended to favor the first one, even if he was aware that believing it was the first one just made him a downright sap of a romantic. But in terms of being sappy and romantic, he’d never really beat the Frenchman, he knew. He settled for little gestures instead, leaving all the roses and candles and grand declarations to the other man to do.

Admittedly, as much as his grimy workshop was surely a hassle for Spy to deal with, there were things that Spy was about that he himself didn’t so much work well with. In the same way Spy balked at leaning on a sawdust-covered workbench, Engie fidgeted at headed out to nice dinners and the like for dates.

He’d grown up in a small town in the middle of nowhere—there was a price to privacy for a family of born-and-bred geniuses—and due to his grandfather’s and father’s paranoia and overall seclusion he never even really knew about having guests over. Dressing to the nines and headed to a restaurant so expensive they didn’t list prices, sampling wines and sitting with elbows always off the table and never pouring his own water and staring down at far too many forks before him, it was downright stressful. And worst of all that stress meant he often slipped, forgot the purpose of him being there, forgot to focus on his date.

So he made Spy do yet another compromise. At least half of their dates were decided by Engie rather than him. So he settled for small diners, family-owned types of places, full of the smell of the same coffee and the same pancakes and the same bacon and the same hash browns that had been served the past twenty years of the establishment being open. Places where instead of a suit plucked straight off a walkway in Europe, he wore a pair of pants stained with paint around the knees, and a long-out-of-style jacket that had been far too big for him when he’d nabbed it from some hapless frat boy in college and only now in his later years when he’d put on equal parts muscle and fat was starting to fit correctly.

Spy’s habits died hard. Engie was half sure he didn’t own a single shirt without buttons (besides his undershirt, but Engie was fairly sure walking out in that may as well have been the equivalent to walking outside in boxers), and his pants were spotless and pressed, and his shoes were shiny. But he did roll his sleeves up to his elbows, and didn’t tuck the shirt quite so neatly, and didn’t even bring a vest, which was a considerable leap down from the suits that he wore whose prices rivalled that of his old, beaten-down stick-shift truck.

Most often, Engie asked him out to breakfast. He didn’t necessarily have an opinion on most restaurants, but he knew when a diner had good breakfast food, and the one in town (at least, the one without wanted posters) most certainly did.

Sometimes he did ask Spy to dinner, though, on busier weekends, if only for the very different feeling of it.

Leaving one of the nice restaurants Spy was so kind as to take him to, Engie was still stiff, still just a bit embarrassed by the looks he’d garnered with his thick accent and his version of politeness, and wide awake as a result.

But walking out of one of those little diners, stomach full of food that was mostly grease, usually late at night (the places often being open until halfway between dusk and dawn), Engie was always relaxed, feeling well at ease, well calmed, satisfied.

He did watch as Spy surreptitiously tried to pull his sleeves down to cover more of his arms, a half-step behind as Engie went to the counter to pay. Night in the desert was a bitter kind of cold, the kind of cold that animals had to have evolved to tolerate, and suddenly Engie was a bit sympathetic towards the fact that the other man hadn’t brought his layers with him for once.

Waiting for his change, Engie finally just sighed, looking over Spy. Twig like him would practically freeze to death walking to the truck, let alone waiting for it to kick on what meager heat it could provide.

All at once he was shrugging off his jacket, pulling himself free of his sleeves, ignoring the goosebumps jumping up on his now-bare arms in protest. “Take my jacket. It’s cold outside,” Engie said simply.

Spy looked almost startled, holding up a hand and shaking his head on almost instinct. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly—“ he started to deny.

Engie rolled his eyes, draping the thing around Spy’s shoulders before he could further protest. He noted the slight bend Spy put to his back in order to allow such a thing. “Just take it,” he said, allowing himself a little smile.

He was somewhat surprised by the way Spy didn’t immediately start inspecting the coat over his shoulders, instead crossing his arms across himself to grip at it, pulling it on more securely, and looking over Engie’s face. He looked at his expression carefully, then glanced over his now-bare arms, then back to his face again.

Engie shrugged under the scrutiny, smile widening a touch. Spy fought back a smile of his own and pulled the jacket tighter over his shoulders. It didn’t fit in the slightest. It made Engie chuckle.

They left the tip and left the establishment, headed for Engie’s truck, parked on the far side of the parking lot out of a paranoia that never quite left when they got off the battlefield.

It was something Engie didn’t really think about until the moment it happened.

He stood to the left of Spy, his keys held loosely in his left hand, and all at once felt something bump the back of his hand near his wrist. He glanced down, and saw Spy’s hand there, and when he looked up, the other man was looking at him with a kind of interest. Spy’s hand bumped against his own again.

Engie grinned as he finally understood the hint, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation as he laced his fingers through Spy’s. And it was then, all at once, that he realized he didn’t really hold hands with Spy. Not while going places, and certainly not in a public area. He wondered why for a moment, if maybe it was paranoia, if maybe it was pride, but the thought fell away as Spy’s thumb brushed over top of his own idly and he realized Spy had taken off his glove.

“Thank you for the jacket,” Spy said quietly.

Engie squeezed his hand. “This isn’t my giving it to you forever,” he chided jokingly. “I’ll want it back _eventually_.”

Spy hummed. “Maybe someday,” he said airily, and damn him, it made the poor Engineer laugh.

Little gestures. Little ones. Maybe they were all the more important.


	14. Sniper/Scout, "Can I kiss you?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: idk if you've done 31. speedingbullet before but oh man, that would be such a wholesome blessing ♡"
> 
> missed the festival in town this year unfortunately bc travel reasons, time to live vicariously through these fictional 60s/70s gays again. (warnings for sappy, mentions of vomit in goof contexts, mentions of weed because im a creature, food)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #31: Can I kiss you?

One of these days, he’d figure out how to get Sniper out of his shell. He was sure of it.

He’d tried just about everything he could think of. He’d invited Sniper to the movies, to tag along to help with a shopping run, out to eat at three kinds of restaurants for lunch and two for dinner. Hell, he’d ended up roping Sniper into a double date, himself set up with a fiery-tempered girl who’d dumped a drink on his head and then written her number on his arm, Sniper with the tag-along friend who apparently needed to get out more. The date hadn’t gotten much of anywhere, the girl and him half-arguing the whole time and Sniper and the other girl staring at their plates and hardly even chiming in when invited. It had taken a bit of pestering to get Sniper to go out again after that.

He dragged Sniper to team meals, to bars, to clubs, to casinos. To a museum, to the farmer’s market, to a flea market. And each and every time he brought Sniper somewhere, the man ended up pacing along beside Scout, hands in his pockets, quietly chiding him when he got argumentative with civilians and quietly laughing at him when his bad luck had him making a fool of himself.

He just wouldn’t open up. Scout told him story after story, showed him all his own interests, presented every kind of joke he could think of, and the guy wouldn’t budge. Wouldn’t start telling his own jokes, wouldn’t start telling his own stories. Wouldn’t commentate on the things around them unless directly asked, and never once suggested where they should go next.

If Scout didn’t like a challenge so much, he would’ve ripped his own damn hair out.

The fair was his last resort. If he couldn’t get Sniper to open up somehow with the excitement and variety and overall greatness of an _entire fair_, then he was denouncing the man as a robot who did not feel things or have real emotions and turning him over to Engie for further study.

This was the middle day of the fair, meaning it was straight up _bustling_. Every stand had at least two people at it, and all the food booths had lines, and all the rides had even longer lines, and the number of teenagers stood around with each other was downright astronomical. This was a big fair, too, one of those harvest-type once-a-year nothing-else-ever-happens-in-this-state festivals that people would come from all over the place to go to. Engie had a lot to say on those kinds of things, and in fact had been the one to suggest Scout go check it out after hearing about it from some other old person when he was out doing some work-related supply run stuff.

Scout was most excited, as he often was, by the food.

The first thing they did once they got in the place was beeline to the first booth, some caramel corn thing, to get a small bag of it. Sniper commented lightly on his restraint. The second was to go to the next booth, which sold cotton candy. They got one cone to split between them. The third was to go to the next booth, which was one of those fair-specific food trucks. Sniper was starting to catch on.

“Aren’t these… well, the same sorts of food you can just find in a city somewhere?” Sniper asked, voice lowered so that only Scout could hear him.

Scout put on his best expression of complete shock and offense. “What! No, it’s totally different! The hell you talkin’ about? Fair food is _awesome!_”

“I mean… I’m not so sure, mate,” Sniper said carefully, glancing over the colorfully-painted sign.

“I—okay, hold on,” Scout instructed, and turned to pay as he was handed his latest portion of food, the Bucket ‘O Fries. “I mean, c’mon, check this out! It’s a bucket of french fries, what’s to dislike?”

Sniper looked at him blankly as they walked away from the food truck. Scout breathed in and began to elaborate.

“I mean, okay, the quality of the fries? Not great. I’ll admit, they’re fuckin’ shit, garbage oil sticks, and they’re also just straight up delicious. They’re the best trash. They’re the truck stop diner bacon of french fries. They’re tasty nightmares. I’m literally gonna like, sweat oil and salt after eating these, and it’s absolutely worth it. You can’t get this specific brand of perfect awfulness anywhere but at a fair. And, _and?_ It’s in a bucket. That’s hilarious. Food in a bucket is awesome. Like, it’s maybe the closest a food place can get to calling its customers animals without making them eat from a trough, and I’m all about it. And you get to _keep_ the bucket. Like, I just have a little plastic trash-lookin’ bucket now. What part of this isn’t objectively the greatest?”

Sniper considered the question. “Well, don’t imagine you’ll be able to eat all those,” he said after thinking about it for a moment. “So, not ideal.”

“Dude, don’t even worry about that. Best part of a carnival like this? They’ve got all this horrible garbage food, and like thirty feet away—“ He stopped in his tracks, and Sniper stopped as well, following his line of sight. “—They have spinny rides that’ll make you puke.”

Sniper was still. Scout watched him, waiting for a reaction. “Rides make you throw up?” he asked after a second.

“If I eat a whole fuckin’ bucket of french fries before I get on, then hell yeah they do,” Scout said cheerfully.

Sniper considered that, or maybe just stared at the ride and all of the screaming and hollering people aboard it.

“How many foods come in a bucket, y’think?” Sniper asked.

“Uh, you got fries,” Scout said, lifting his Bucket ‘O Fries to demonstrate his point. “You got fried chicken. I went to this place once with chicken tenders in a bucket with fries.”

“So just a combination of the first two,” Sniper said.

“Oh my god, what? Dude, no way, fried chicken and chicken tenders are _wildly_ different, you kiddin’ me?” Scout gasped. “Barely the same food group!”

Sniper shifted his feet, still watching the ride. “How’re they different?”

“Don’t even get me _started_, man,” Scout warned.

“Do you even know the food groups?” Sniper asked next, voice flat in a way that Scout had learned meant Sniper was joking.

“Sniper, as a connoisseur of absolute garbage, you insult me,” Scout deadpanned back. “Let’s take some laps of the games and stuff before we go on the rides, I gotta have time to appreciate these fries before they’re being sent into a trash can.”

Sniper shrugged in agreement, following Scout as he started off towards some of the games.

Scout blew a good twenty dollars on the bottle ring toss game, pleased to hear Sniper chiming in every time he made a particularly bad throw. The next booth over had Scout making a repeat performance with the cane ring toss game, except he did manage to win himself exactly one prize, a sticky hand which only ended up directly in his pocket due to the look of immediate dismay on Sniper’s face when he saw Scout wielding it.

“Hey, if there’s one of those shooting games here, think you’d wanna play it? Show up some people?” Scout asked.

Sniper shook his head. “Mate, even out here in civvies,” he started, plucking at the shoulder of Scout’s civilian t-shirt and the chest of his own choice of clothing, a green-grey button-up, “I imagine an Australian washing out the place and a Boston bloke cheering him on would earn enough looks to get us recognized. Especially since you’ve still got the hat and I’ve the glasses.” He tapped first the bill of Scout’s hat, then the side of his own shades.

“Then we fake some accents,” Scout said cheerfully.

Sniper raised an eyebrow, which Scout had long learned was the closest thing to emoting that Sniper managed most of the time. “As if you know how to fake accents,” Sniper said, a note of disbelief showing through.

“What, you think I don’t?” Scout challenged, bumping elbows with him partially by accident as they needed to squeeze between two gaggles of people.

“Do one, then,” Sniper said simply.

Scout cleared his throat, raising his chin. “Oi, look ‘ere, mind tellin’ me where you might find a hotel ‘round ‘ere?” Scout said in an approximation of a lighthearted British accent.

Sniper stared at him. “The hell’d you learn to do that? That was damn well spot on,” Sniper said, both eyebrows raised now.

Scout kept grinning, ducking ahead for a second to squeeze between two intersecting lines of people. When Sniper caught back up he started explaining. “Me an’ one’a my brothers spent these two summers pullin’ this scam,” he started to explain. “We’d pretend to be tourists in town for tour group stuff, sneak into tour groups around the middle’a the day with these old busted cameras he got off people and fake accents so people thought we were from somewhere else, get into buffets for tour-specific stuff and eat for free and leave again,” he explained. “First summer we did it for like two months straight with different tours, second summer we only made it a month in before we had to cut it out.”

“Why?”

“His ex-girlfriend apparently got a job as a tour guide. That was, uh, the second time I ended up in custody that summer.”

“Hooligan,” Sniper murmured in a way that made Scout unsure if he was being made fun of, scolded, or congratulated.

They ended up at the ball toss at some point, which Scout did end up knocking out of the park a few times until the attendant told him to please move along already, reasoning that they already had a frankly ludicrous number of stuffed animals. Indeed, Sniper was carrying three large ones, and Scout had another one in the arm not carrying assorted food.

“I’m namin’ this guy Cotton Candy,” Scout said matter-of-factly, hefting the blue-pink-and-white rabbit up higher as it started to slip from his grip. “And I’m naming that guy Fry Bucket.”

“Which one?” Sniper asked, glancing between the three stuffed animals in his hand.

“That one,” Scout said, bumping a the yellow-and-purple-and-white-and-black slightly-suspicious-looking cat with his elbow. “Because the colors are bright like the bucket.”

“What about the other two?” Sniper asked.

“Eh, they’re yours, up to you.”

Sniper didn’t speak for a moment, just shifting the stuffed animals a bit. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I don’t got a use for four of these guys,” Scout shrugged. “Already I’m thinkin’ about whether Pyro’s gonna want Fry Bucket or Cotton Candy more.”

“What’s that second name about?” Sniper asked. “Is that a brand?”

“…What?”

“Cotton candy.” Sniper’s accent wrapped around the words strangely. “That a specific kind? The, er, blue-pink stuff?”

“…Of cotton candy?” Scout asked slowly.

“Yeah. It’s fairy floss, so is cotton candy then just a certain—“

“It’s fuckin’ _what?_” Scout asked, eyes lighting up.

Sniper paused for a few seconds. “…You people made up your own name for somethin’ again, haven’t you?” Sniper asked, sighing.

“Fairy floss? Okay, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about that name.”

“No, we already did this with the bonnet and hood thing, and the… prawn and shrimp thing. So you people call it cotton candy. Noted. Moving on.”

“So like, the tiny winged girls, fuckin’—so goddamn Tinkerbell, she brushes her teeth, right? And she’s gotta be thorough. Ain’t gonna get no gum disease here in fuckin’ Neverland, no way, no adults here so no dentists so that’d go pretty bad. So she’s gotta floss, right? And she uses a goddamn cloud-lookin’ pillowy thing? It’s fairy floss?”

“I didn’t invent all of Australian slang,” Sniper interjected. “You can’t judge me for my country’s choice in naming things. I can’t help it.”

“It’s cotton candy, man! It’s cotton, like outta some kinda pillow, made with sugar. I don’t get why you would call it somethin’ else.”

“Apparently Ireland and those blokes up there split the difference, called it candy floss,” Sniper added in before Scout could get too carried away.

“It’s still not floss! Couldn’t pick a different one? Called it, what, fairy cotton?”

Sniper’s lip twitched up for a moment. “I’m nearly sure that’s some sort of code word for hooch, mate.”

“What the _fuck_ is hooch? Are you speaking English? Am I in fuckin’ wonderland right now?” Scout asked, downright baffled.

“Hooch. Marijuana, cannabis. Mate, you said you grew up in the city, the hell you mean you don’t know what hooch is?”

“Who the fuck calls it hooch?! Man, I knew that Australia was weird, but seriously, it’s gotta be crazy down there,” Scout laughed.

They continued to wander the fairgrounds for awhile longer, and while Sniper was a bit more talkative than usual, Scout couldn’t be sure it wasn’t his imagination and his quietly trying to prompt Sniper into saying more. Eventually Scout could tell that the fairground was nearing closing time, crowd thinning alongside the various booths starting to close up shop and haul things away and lock stuff up for the night.

“I don’t think we’re gonna get around to that eating a ton of food and throwing up thing,” Scout said, a little bit put out.

“Sounds…” Sniper started to say, and stopped again quickly.

Scout waited. “What? What were you gonna say?”

Sniper hesitated. “I was going to say that it… sounds a bit juvenile, don’t you think?” he said slowly. “Not quite as fun as an adult.”

Scout considered that for a few seconds. “…Yeah. Maybe,” he conceded. “Haven’t done that since I was a teen. Might not be as great anymore.”

Sniper hummed. Scout kept talking, as he was used to.

“I mean, back then stuff was also pretty weird all the time,” he said, fidgeting with the handle on the fry bucket. “There was school, then practice, then I’d go home and have stuff with my brothers goin’ on all the time, some kinda shenanigans to pull. Now it’s just work, then I go do chores, then I’m all tired and don’t wanna do nothin’ except go to sleep, then I go to sleep and it’s the next day and I got work again. If I don’t got chores or whatever it’s fine, but man. When did I get all _boring_, y’know?”

“I don’t think you’re boring,” Sniper said quietly.

Scout looked at him, but couldn’t quite catch his expression the way he was holding the stuffed animals. “Huh? What’d you say?” he asked, fully aware but giving Sniper a chance to take that back or spin it into a joke the way just about everyone did.

“I don’t… I don’t think you’re boring,” Sniper said again, a bit louder now. “You’re interesting. You’ve got big opinions on just about everything, a million stories, a bunch of secret talents that only ever happen to come up at odd times. And you’ve got a lot of jokes. You’re…”

He trailed for a moment as they passed a small group of teens, chattering and laughing among themselves.

“You’re funny. You’re interesting,” Sniper said simply. “Not boring.”

Scout didn’t fight the smile that pulled at his face. “Well, look who’s gotten sweet all of a sudden,” he marveled aloud. Sniper readjusted the stuffed animals he was holding, bringing them closer to his face. “Well, speakin’ of sweet, want some more fairy floss before that place over there closes?”

Sniper nodded somewhere behind the layers of fluff and foam.

Their last stop was out towards the edge of the fairgrounds, the big ferris wheel they had set up. It was the tallest thing at the fair, no contest, and while it definitely wasn’t the biggest ferris wheel Scout had ever seen, or even been on, it was still surprisingly nice.

“Imagine that’s the sort that they need to break down to transport, rather than just keeping it on a trailer,” Sniper said almost offhandedly, following Scout’s line of sight.

“You know stuff about ferris wheels?” Scout asked, blinking.

Sniper shrugged. “Needed to for a job. Just the basics.”

“Huh. Cool.” Scout continued to look at the wheel. “Hey, I know sometimes they don’t shut those off at night, to like, promote the fair. Think they’ve still got an attendant working?”

“Probably not,” Sniper said, glancing around at the line of closed tents and booths around them.

“Wanna just hop on board?”

Sniper looked at him with a slight head tilt. “Why would we do that?”

Scout grinned. “Hey, we aren’t plannin’ on coming back here tomorrow, might as well make a grand exit and get kicked out,” he reasoned.

Sniper’s head tilted slightly further, almost disapproving. “We’d get arrested. The boss would be furious.”

“Assuming they call the cops and the cops get here before we’re gone. What’re they gonna do, be mad? Call our parents? Give us a stern lecture?” He elbowed Sniper. “Come _on_, let’s live a little!”

And then Scout was off, headed towards the wheel.

“I didn’t agree to this, technically,” Sniper said, hurrying to follow, voice slightly raised.

“But you’re gonna do it anyways!” Scout chimed.

Sniper did not argue that point.

The security was foolproof. A padlock and chain on a gate that was three feet high and had horizontal bars, as well as another lock on the control panel lever. Scout, known for his ability to jump vertically to well over his standing height, was quiet simply unequipped for such a challenge.

Sniper did have to hand over the stuffed animals before he could hop the gate, but soon Scout was placing Fry Bucket on lever duty and the other three nearby to stand guard, then he and Sniper were clambering into one of the cars and headed up.

It was going fairly slowly, to be fair. It took a solid minute for them to get only a bit above halfway up, and it spun them up backwards, meaning most of the view was obscured.

“Other wheels I went on usually spun the other way,” Scout commented lightly, kicking his feet up despite the slightly awkward angle. “Kept stopping to let people on and off, too. Way smaller, though.”

Sniper hummed. Silence fell.

Not long after they’d reached the apex and started heading back down again, Sniper sighed quietly. “I’m sorry if I got sharp with you,” he apologized, very serious. “I just… crowds aren’t much good to me. Too much noise, too much action. People too close. Gets me on edge.”

Scout was suddenly treated with the memory of just about every outing he’d gone so far as to take Sniper on, almost all of which involved crowds. “What?” he asked, taken aback. He pulled his feet down, sitting up. “Really? Dude, why didn’t you say nothin’? I’ve been takin’ you out to real bustlin’ places for like, two months!”

Sniper made a listless gesture. “Didn’t want to ruin your fun just because I’m a worrywart,” he replied, even quieter now. “And I doubt you’ve got many places you know that don’t involve whole masses of people. It’s your whole element.”

Scout couldn’t really argue with that. “Well, then I would’ve been letting _you_ pick where we hang out,” he said stubbornly.

Sniper’s eyebrows drew together. “What? I thought you just wanted someone to bring with you when you went out,” Sniper said, clearly confused.

Scout blinked. “Dude, no. I’ve just been tryin’ to find a place you’d like to hang out in, see if I could get you to talk about anything. You’re always all quiet, I figured it was because you’re bored.”

“Of course not. Opposite, really. Gets overwhelming, I try my best to shut my mouth and pay attention.”

Scout needed a minute to loop his head around that. “Oh. Huh.” They reached the bottom of the wheel, but neither moved to get up, and they just continued on their steady path up again. “I… shit. Dude, I had no idea. I thought you were just hard to please.”

Sniper shook his head. “No. The places are always nice—this is nice—but I just…”

He trailed off. Scout waited for him to sort through his words.

“I just prefer… things like this,” he decided on. “Instead of noises and movement and close quarters and a hundred food smells.”

Scout’s mind went ahead and dealt with that one for a good minute. “Close quarters,” he repeated. “So this isn’t good either?”

“With other people, other folks,” Sniper clarified. “I’m fine with closed spaces.”

“Well, _I’m_ other folks,” Scout said.

Sniper looked away, off to one side. “Not really,” he said, words almost lost to a breeze that decided to blow by just then. “You’re just Scout. I’m fine with you.”

Quiet again.

They made it to the top of the ride again, and Scout found himself relaxing a little bit. He tilted his head back.

“Can’t see the stars out here so good,” Scout said, looking up at the sky.

“Light pollution,” Sniper murmured in agreement, looking up as well. “I can hardly see any at all.”

“You’ve still got your shades on,” Scout half-laughed.

Sniper reached a hand up as if to push his glasses up his nose, and just kept his hand there on them for a few seconds.

“C’mon, not so many stars, by they’re still good ones,” Scout urged.

Sniper hesitated for a moment before he pulled the shades off, folding them, hanging them on his shirt. His gaze fell down below for a moment, then up to the sky. He had pretty eyes. There were some wrinkles around them, the kind of thing that meant Sniper either laughed a lot, or spent a lot of time in the sun, or a mixture of both. Scout realized he’d probably have his own pretty soon with his lifestyle. He found a lot of things funny.

Sniper briefly glanced at Scout out of the corner of his eye, then back away again.

“You’re staring,” Sniper said quietly, gaze falling to the tents and stands as they started on the inward down curve.

Scout looked away, also out at the area they’d just been in. Only a few places still had lights around them. The area was mostly dark, the tent blockings around them lit mainly by the gently changing lights on their ferris wheel. “You should take your shades off more,” Scout said.

Sniper shifted. “I use ‘em at work,” he replied. “They help me shoot.”

“You weren’t at work today, or any of the other times we went and did stuff,” Scout replied, tipping his head against the back of the seat, rolling his head to look at Sniper. Tiredness was creeping up on him, not in a cranky way, just in a lazy way.

“Why would I take ‘em off?” Sniper asked, not looking at him.

“So I can know where you’re lookin’,” Scout shrugged. “And because you look good, and they hide your face.”

Sniper’s eyes fell to his own knees, which he gripped in both hands. “Maybe that’s the point,” he said, voice rumbling against the lowest volume he could manage.

Scout kept looking at him, then back up at the sky as they made it to the upper half.

“Scout, I have a question,” Sniper said, eyes locked downward.

“Mm,” Scout hummed.

Sniper took a breath, exhaled. Looked over at Scout, made eye contact, maybe for the first time without the barrier of tinted, reflective lenses in the way. “Can I kiss you?”

Scout wasn’t sure what his expression was in the following several moments of silence, but it made Sniper tense, paling under the colorful lights, visibly sinking at roughly the same speed as the car they were in as they passed the apex.

“I’m sorry, I just—“ he started to stammer, backtracking as Scout did his best to mentally try and sort out the can of worms that was just opened. “I thought, we—ferris wheel, you sayin’ that I’m, I’m good looking, and—“

Scout saw the way he was fidgeting, fiddling, hands no longer able to be stuffed in his pockets to prevent it.

“—and you won those stuffed animals for me s’well, and you’ve been taking me to dinner, tryin’ to make me laugh, and—“

He couldn’t quite look at Scout, and maybe he could never quite look at Scout, and maybe that’s why he never took his sunglasses off. Maybe that’d why he kept his hat’s brim low. Maybe that’s why he held things up near his face.

“—and I just assumed, I, I’m sorry, I’m godawful at picking up the clues on that sort of thing, and maybe I just imagined things, I—“

“Do you wanna?”

Sniper’s rambling stammered to a halt. He didn’t look at Scout. “What?”

“Hey. Look at me.” It took a minute, but he did, tipping his head up first, eyes following a second later. Crow’s feet. “Do you wanna kiss me?”

Sniper managed the tiniest of nods.

“Out loud,” Scout added, voice level.

Sniper took a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to,” he said.

Scout tilted his head up for a second. They were headed back up and over again. Stars.

“Yeah,” Scout decided. “You can, if you want.”

Sniper had to take a second to process that. But then, slowly, he placed his hand on Scout’s shoulder. He second-guessed himself, hand moving instead to rest on Scout’s cheek, tilting his face only on accident, and then Sniper was kissing him.

It felt nice. Scout reached up slowly so as to keep from scaring Sniper away, an arm wrapping up around his shoulders.

By the time they pulled away, they were at the bottom of the wheel again. Sniper managed to smile at him, so visibly relieved and contented that it almost left Scout reeling, the sudden input of reaction making his head spin.

“You taste like fries,” Sniper informed him quietly.

Scout laughed.


	15. Spy&Scout, "I can't breathe."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Youre stories are realy good! If it's not to much to ask could I get one with 51"i cant breath"? Somthing with scout and whoever you think would be could with it please. Maybe also somthing to do with panic attacks if I'm not asking to much. Please and thank!"
> 
> welcome to Dad!Spy hours featuring spy being a good dad just this one time. (warnings for what’s included in the prompt, and claustrophobia. tag this as ship and i’ll straight up end you.)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #51: I can't breathe.

The team had a whole host of jokes about the cave systems. They’d all been joking around for years that there’d be a cave-in one day. “Better hope we get stuck with Soldier and his shovel,” Demo often joked. In return, Soldier would say the same thing about Demo and his explosives.

Ironically, it was the enemy Soldier and Demo that got them into this situation there at the end of the humiliation round, right near the end of the day, a few pre-emptive rockets fizzing their way into the opening of the cavern, a grenade bouncing itself exactly wrong, two support beams being cracked and practically shattering, bringing the tunnel down on their heads.

Spy caught sight of the horrified stares of his surviving teammates up towards the ceiling, and then he himself looked up, and everything went black.

Not with him being knocked unconscious. The lights had been knocked out, and while Spy was feeling rather battered and bruised by the various rocks and beam chunks that fell down, he was fairly certain he’d remained awake the whole time.

The sound of collapse faded away, and the ringing in his ears followed. He slowly stood from his place in a defensive crouch on the ground, blinking rapidly, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

It was no good. He couldn’t see even the smallest pinprick of light. No access to the sun, then. Hopefully that didn’t mean there was no airflow.

He fished through his pocket for his matches, lighting one, looking around his immediate area.

That gave him some slight bearing on his location, seeing one of the medical lockers in what little light he had available. He was roughly the same place he’d been in when the lights went out, and was therefore trapped in the section of the tunnel between the Respawn room and the exit. It was possible that other members of the team had dove to safety in the Respawn room, which he’d been rather far from regardless, and if not they were likely simply crushed beneath rubble. Regardless, he imagined that he’d be able to handle being alone for however long it took to—

His eyes landed on a particularly red rock and a flash of white near the bottom of the medical locker, and he realized, no, wait, he wasn’t alone at all.

He bristled, lighting the next match in his case as the first reached the end of its lifespan, stepping over the rocks scattered on the ground, and went to inspect Scout.

He was limp, unmoving, unresisting to being rolled over onto his back. Spy picked up his arm, thumb over the inside of his wrist. He was bleeding sluggishly from a wound just above his eyebrow, and was clearly knocked out cold, but he wasn’t dead. The sight of Scout so battered, to Spy’s dismay, had yet to stop causing him to feel discomfort. Inconvenient.

Spy began to do some mental math. He was aware (through means he was not at liberty to discuss) that the average human could survive roughly an hour when struggling to escape from an airtight space roughly the size of a coffin before falling unconscious. The space they were in was significantly larger than a coffin—a good three meters in diameter, a good two and a half meters tall, uneven. But it was also considerably dusty, and Spy’s lungs were quite frankly terrible, and that idea didn’t factor in for conversation or a fire-based light source. He guessed they could both _perhaps_ live for two hours.

He went about pulling pieces of beam from off the ground, getting rubbing alcohol and some of the excessive amounts of gauze from the cabinet and quickly improvising a small, contained fire. With a light source solidified, he spotted Scout’s headset on the ground a few feet away from him, and picked it up, holding it up to his ear and fiddling with the little radio attachment. No noise, not even static, came through, and he deemed it broken, tossing t aside, deciding that avenue to get help was a lost cause. He managed to locate some ammonia tablets in the cabinet, snapping one open and holding it beneath Scout’s nose.

The young man shook awake, disoriented, visibly freaked out. The moment he had what he clearly assumed was reasonable control over his motor functions, he jolted backwards, scrambling away, and slammed his head against the cabinet behind him.

An inhale, then Scout started swearing a blue streak that Spy knew he only could’ve inherited from his mother’s side of the family.

Spy slapped him on the arm, stopping him from reaching up to touch the various bumps on his head. “Don’t do that,” he snapped. “Sit up.”

Scout blinked up at him with reflexively watering eyes, still wincing. “Spy, what the fuck?” he asked, confused.

“Sit up. I need to bandage your wound,” Spy commanded.

Scout was still disoriented enough to actually listen to him for once (possibly a concussion), and Spy began to set to work wrapping up his head before he could get any further grime into his bloodstream. “What the fuck?” he repeated after a second, blinking rapidly, looking out the corner of his eye at the scene around them. “Tunnel collapsed.”

“Would you like to use an article in that sentence, or are you strictly set on nouns, verbs, and phrases that involve swearing?” Spy snarked, unimpressed. “Yes, the tunnel collapsed. And I am currently unsure if the Respawn room is more or less horrible than here, so I would prefer you sit still while I try and do this.”

Scout obliged, even if he was gradually beginning to fidget in a way that Spy knew meant the disorientation was fading fast. “We can’t get to Respawn? And where are the guys?”

“No, and presumably that is where the rest of the team is.”

Scout took a second to process that. “But… how much of the tunnels collapsed?” Scout asked slowly. “How do we know that Respawn didn’t collapse too?”

Spy, tying off the gauze, stopped for a moment, considering.

“Or… the lights went out, right?” Scout asked, eyes locking on one of the shattered lightbulbs, sat dormant not far away. “How do we know the electricity isn’t down? How do we know that… that any of the guys even lived?”

It took Spy a second to think of a good response to that. “Well, I do not see any gore in our vicinity,” he replied flatly. “If Respawn was down, it would not have picked up their corpses. They are all most likely alive.”

He finished dressing Scout’s wound and sat back. Scout felt at it with his fingertips. Spy batted his hand away again. “Uh, so what’s the plan?” Scout asked. “We gonna just… start digging, or…?”

Spy gave him a deadpan look.

Scout rubbed at his arms, brushing away what dirt was still sticking to him. “Okay, sheesh. Well, what, then we’re just gonna be stuck here?”

“I can assume the rest of the team will try to excavate out shortly. Assuming their attempts to do so do not bring the tunnel down on top of us, we may be able to use one of the Laborer’s teleporters to get out,” Spy reasoned aloud. God, he wished he could smoke a cigarette, but already the place was starting to feel a bit stuffy from the smell of the little fire.

Scout shifted slightly, sitting up a bit more. He seemed unsettled. “So the plan is just to hang tight, then?” he asked.

“Yes. And while I understand that remaining in one place and not bouncing off the walls tends to be an _issue_ for you, understand that I have absolutely no qualms sending you to go bicker and argue with the rest of the team in the Respawn room,” Spy said bitterly.

Scout didn’t need to know that that wasn’t true.

So Scout promptly went, as Spy liked to think of it, on his “best behavior”. That is to say he curled up to sit cross-legged and shut his mouth, starting to fiddle with and pull something apart—this time it was a small chunk of wood that was sitting nearby, leaving a small pile of splinters just in front of him.

And to Spy’s mild confusion, Scout then bent his head forward, closing his eyes tightly as if in concentration.

Usually, Scout being on his “best behavior” lasted roughly as long as it took for him to take apart whatever he was fiddling with, an average of three to four minutes, less if he snagged a pocket knife off of someone in the vicinity.

But at some point, Scout stopped fiddling altogether, just frowning harder. Five minutes had passed of silence from Scout, and admittedly, Spy was starting to get… not antsy, absolutely not, he was an adult, a professional agent of espionage, he didn’t get _antsy_. Suspicious might be the better word.

“What are you doing?” Spy asked, putting in the minimum effort to keep from sounding _too_ immediately accusatory.

Scout puffed out an annoyed breath, apparently having been holding it for a few moments. “Nothin’,” he said. “Fiddlin’,” he amended, returning to messing with the block of wood between tightly-taped hands.

Spy bit back a positively pedestrian joke about not realizing Scout could play music, and further not realizing that he had access to a string instrument just then, to instead glare in preparation for Scout perhaps looking at him. “You’re being quiet.”

“You literally just told me to,” Scout groused, brow furrowing further, the look of such features far too familiar, too much like looking in a mirror.

“What are you planning?” Spy pressed.

“I’m not _planning_ anything,” Scout argued. “I’m just… thinkin’.”

That was dangerous for the both of them. “What about?”

“If I _tell you_, will you _shut up?_” Scout asked, sighing heavily.

“Of course.”

Scout’s fiddling stalled for only a second. “I’m just, tryin’ to remember songs and stuff. Run through the lyrics in my head. Keepin’ distracted.”

A short pause. “That’s ridiculous.”

“You _said_ you’d shut up!” Scout groaned, opening his eyes briefly to glare up at the ceiling, then promptly returning to his hunched position.

Spy bit back a patronizing comment about how sitting like that would ruin Scout’s back. “Why do you need to distract yourself, exactly? Is it _that_ difficult to keep your mouth shut for longer than ten minutes?”

Scout dropped the piece of wood into his lap, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Look, I don’t wanna talk about it,” Scout snapped.

“You realize I will continue asking regardless.”

Another heavy sigh, scrubbing harder. When he dropped his hands, there was a bit of grime smeared across Scout’s cheeks from the dirt. They were closed tightly. “I’ve just got a thing about bein’ stuck in small spaces, okay?” he snapped, less confidently. “And maybe it’s…” He sighed again. “Maybe I’m just a little freaked out.”

Spy understood immediately. Unfortunately, his hard-won instinct to keep Scout at a safe emotional distance with harshness and bite leapt up before he could say anything comforting. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why are you getting so worked up?” he asked.

Another sharp huff. “You already said this place’ll probably come down on our heads any minute, here,” Scout pointed out, squeezing his eyes shut harder. “And I’m tryin’ not to think about it. So I’m just runnin’ through song lyrics and stuff. Baseball stats. Whatever doesn’t involve,” another huff of air, “thinkin’ about just fuckin’, suffocating and dying under a metric shit-ton of rocks and dirt.”

“What are you doing?” Spy asked, brows furrowed.

“Fuckin’ _what?_” Scout snapped.

“Your breathing. Why are you doing that?” Spy asked, noting the way that Scout’s chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, all wrong.

Scout paused, considered himself, then his eyes snapped open and he swore another blue streak, leaping up and moving to the medical locker.

“Mother _fucker_,” he enunciated, practically throwing things out onto the ground. “Really?! This is gonna happen _now?!_”

Spy dodged a roll of medical tape. “What are you talking about?!” he snapped.

“Fuckin’—oh, sorry, I thought you’re the—“ A huff of air. “—I thought you’re the guy who knows everything, huh? Didn’t know?”

Spy, who was admittedly flicking through what information he had about Scout, glared. “If you tell me what’s wrong, have you considered that I might be able to _help?_” he said, a bit huffy himself now.

“Like you’d even help me,” Scout scoffed, then coughed, narrowly avoiding knocking out a whole box of gauze. “Fuckin’—damn it!”

“Just tell me!” Spy insisted.

“When I was—a kid,” Scout managed, breathing labored, using one of the bottom shelves as a foothold so he could look up towards the top shelves, “I was—my Ma had all these kids, and, fuck, I dunno, I just—I guess somethin’ was, was wrong, and—and I got born too early or somethin’, and was all sick and, fucked up for a long time—“

Spy’s heart caught in his throat. He knew this part well. It was the part he’d been present for. He set his jaw, fighting back whatever expression was trying to surface.

“—and then I, I started to get better, when I was, startin’ to learn to talk an’ stuff, and movin’ around, and we thought I was just better,” Scout managed to gasp. “But my lungs were still all fucked up until I, I was maybe fifteen, and the Doc said when I got here that, that I’d probably had asthma, that if I’d just gone to a doctor over it, maybe somethin’ could’ve, been—“

Scout swayed, only barely catching himself, stepping down, gripping the shelves hard, other hand dragging up through his hair.

“—he said I wouldn’t get these no more, that my lungs were, all better now, but, showed me what to do any, ways, just in case, and I think all the dust and the, the fire smell and, the—“ Scout swayed again, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the door of the shelving unit. “I, fuck. I can’t breathe. Fuck.”

Spy was already on his feet. He took hold of Scout’s shoulder, turning him around, guiding him to sit down. “Stop talking, focus,” he instructed, not as sharp as he would’ve wanted. He fished through his own jacket pockets, and finally handed Scout a small plastic device. “Here.”

Scout took it in shaking hands, and managed to look it over. His eyes widened, and he glanced up at Spy. “You’ve—why do you—have—“ he tried.

Spy tugged on Scout’s arm, and finally Scout shut up, moving to take a controlled puff off of the inhaler, eyes falling closed.

A few beats of pause, Scout visibly trying to control his breathing, hand shaking severely. No visible change. “Sit up straight. Head back a bit. Try again,” Spy instructed, guiding him to do so as he spoke. “Breathe in slowly. It should take a few moments to begin to set in.”

Scout followed his instructions despite the tremors wracking him. Twenty seconds passed, still no change. “Why do you have—an inhaler?” Scout asked, breath a wheeze.

“Try again.” A series of conflicting emotions passed through Spy. “The Doctor gave one to me to deal with my weakened lungs. I’ve been smoking heavily for decades, and it has revealed previous problems with my lungs.”

Scout nodded absently, head tipping forward. He started to curl up in towards himself. “I don’t think—it’s working,” Scout managed, panic rising in his voice.

A lightbulb went off in Spy’s head, followed by a stab of pain in his chest as realization sunk in.

He went to try and take the inhaler from Scout, but it was held tight in his grip, only the firmness of the plastic casing making sure he didn’t crush the device and it’s contents. He gave up on that, instead sitting down next to Scout, shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Scout, you are not having an asthma attack,” he said, unable to help the patience in his tone. “You are having a panic attack.”

Scout’s brow furrowed further, knees curling up closer to himself. “No I’m—not,” he protested.

Spy went through the internal argument on his next move, his survival instinct telling him to just move to the other side of the room and pretend he didn’t care at all, to let Scout hyperventilate himself unconscious, his paternal instinct telling him to pull Scout close to his chest and rock him until the fear went away, the same way he did when Scout was just a sickly infant struggling for his next breath between helpless sobbing. He split the difference, putting a hand on Scout’s shoulder. “Yes you are. You’re scared because we are trapped in a small space, and you are deeply claustrophobic, and the situation is dangerous, and we do not know if the team is safe,” he said, voice calm, patient.

Scout shook his head in denial, a hand moving to pick at the gauze on his head. Spy pulled it away again carefully with his free hand before he could open the wound again, squeezing Scout’s wrist.

“Those are all completely reasonable things to be scared of,” Spy said softly. “I’m also quite nervous. But I need for you to calm down.”

“Easy for—you to—“ Scout tried to gasp, but gave up, voice falling to a whine, nearly a sob, hand moving to grip at Spy’s tightly enough to almost hurt.

“I know. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying you’ll be able to do this quickly. But this will pass, and you can help speed it along.” Scout didn’t reply. “I’m going to start counting aloud. If you cannot start making your breathing slow down, you can at least begin to even it out and make it regular. Understand?”

Scout managed a motion that might’ve been a nod.

Spy counted calmly—not too quickly, not too slowly—from one to ten. Then he did so again. And again. To help himself keep time, he tried to think of a song in his mind to count along to. He remembered some tune he’d picked up when he first attempted to learn to play piano.

By the time he’d gone through the song once, counting along steadily, Scout was at least following a steady rhythm in his breathing. Inhaling for one-two, pausing, exhaling for four-five-six. Spy started counting on an eight rhythm, and soon Scout had shifted to follow it, inhaling one-two-three, pause, exhaling five-six-seven-eight. Spy carefully slowed his tempo, a bit too slowly for Scout to likely notice in his state.

He stopped counting, and Scout’s breathing, while still shaky, was at least fairly regular and normal. “Do you feel better?” Spy asked after giving Scout a moment to just exist.

Scout squeezed his hand again, making the leather of Spy’s glove creak. “A little,” he answered, voice weak in a way that made Spy’s heart creak. A pause, Scout trying to figure out his words. “Just the. Breathing part,” he elaborated, unsteady.

Spy looked at him, then towards the fire as it sputtered suddenly. “Would talking help?” he asked. “I know that tends to be a crutch for you.”

Scout looked over at him, visibly confused, presumably by the lack of insult in Spy’s tone when he said that. He looked away again after a second. “No,” he finally said. “I just wanna… keep breathing.”

“Would _me_ talking help?” Spy asked next.

Scout considered the question. He shrugged, aimless. “I-I dunno,” he managed.

Spy hummed. He thought for a moment, then began telling the first story that came to mind—another time he’d been trapped in a cave, albeit for different reasons. He spoke in French only, aware that this story contained details that were a bit embarrassing, and conflicted with a more self-aggrandizing version of it that he’d already told to the team at some meal in the past. Admittedly, outright lying to Scout just then felt excessively cruel, even by Spy’s standards, but he didn’t feel quite right telling the full, honest truth. Speaking honestly in a language Scout didn’t understand felt like a safe middle ground.

By the end of that story, then another one, then another one, Scout had relaxed again, sagging, visibly exhausted from his ordeal. Spy couldn’t see his watch, but he estimated that perhaps an hour had passed. The air felt thick, but not chokingly so, and warm from the heat of the fire having nowhere to go. There was still fear in the back of Spy’s mind, but it had turned to a non-present sort of fear, waiting to be called back rather than lingering in the center of his attention.

“Hey,” Scout said suddenly. “How did you know how to do that?”

“How to do what?” Spy asked.

“Calm someone down.”

Spy considered the array of answers he could give to that, and went, both despite himself and through great effort, with the honest one. “I don’t, not really,” Spy shrugged. “I simply did what I thought would help.”

“Why?” Scout asked, voice either very tired or simply sad. “You don’t even like me. You barely put up with me.”

Spy’s chest constricted. “I’m not _cruel_, Scout,” he chided.

Scout sagged. A pause. “What happened to my hat?”

“What?”

“My hat. My hat’s gone,” Scout said. “What happened to it?”

Spy hummed, then disconnected all points of contact with Scout—first releasing his hand, then taking his hand from his shoulder, then leaning away so there was no contact between their torsos. He then stood, moving across the room to the area he’d thrown Scout’s headset to pick it back up, pulling his hat from beneath the rock he’d found the headset beside. He handed both to Scout.

Scout’s eyes lit up. “Wait, holy _shit_, we still have my radio?” he asked, taking it and starting to fiddle with it.

Spy pulled the hat onto Scout’s head, snorting at how strangely it sat on him with the bulk of the gauze there as well. “Yes, but it’s broken,” Spy said.

Scout reached inside the earpiece, flicking some switch. The radio buzzed to life, humming the sound of static and white noise faintly from it. “Uh, no it’s not,” Scout said, raising an eyebrow at him briefly. “It was just turned off to save the battery between rounds.”

Spy blinked, watching as Scout flicked the dial in practiced, precise motions. “…Oh,” he said, feeling extremely stupid.

“Yeah. Hold on, I’ve got this,” Scout said simply, pulling the headset on and flicking the mic down, still fiddling with the dial even as he pressed the talk button. “This is Scout, rotating through all radio channels, does anyone copy? We’re still alive down here, we need some help. Anyone there? Repeat, this is Scout, rotating broadcast, anyone listening?”

Scout repeated himself a few times, flicking the dial every few rounds of sentences. He stopped suddenly on one, perking up. Spy perked up as well, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, yeah, copy that!” he chirped, excited. “Only just now found comms. Where’s everyone else? Over.”

Silence for a few moments, and Scout ticked off on his fingers as he listened, coming up at seven.

“Yeah, I’ve got Spy with me right here. We’re fine, just, uh, some bruising. Over.”

“I believe Scout has a concussion,” Spy added, leaning forward and raising his voice to speak through Scout’s mic.

Scout rolled his eyes, still holding the talk button. “You gotta say ‘over’, man. C’mon. Uh, anyways. Nothing real bad. Our only issue might be air pretty soon, we’ve got a fire to see but it doesn’t look like we’ve got any way out. Is Respawn up? Over.”

Silence. Scout went pale as he listened for a few moments. Spy could only faintly make out what sounded like the Engineer’s drawling cadence, muffled.

“Oh god. Okay. Uh, so should we start digging to find surface? Over?”

Silence again for a long few moments. Spy resisted the urge to tap his foot. Scout frowned suddenly, shifting.

“You’re crackling, you cut out for a second. Repeat last?”

Silence for a few beats.

“Copy that. We’ll just hang tight. I’ll keep comms on. Tell us if we get power back up. Over.”

Silence. A short burst of speech.

“Copy. Over and out.”

Scout pulled his hand down, looking over at Spy. “So, uh, power’s down. They’ve got light, and radios up, but the machines are down. No Respawn.”

Spy’s blood went cold. “Ah. I see.”

Scout shifted on his feet. “Uh. Yeah. Everyone’s fine, it managed to spit out what people got picked up before the tunnel collapsed, and Soldier and Heavy got knocked out, but Medic’s got everyone on their feet. They’re workin’ to dig us out, and they’ve made headway. Shouldn’t be long, they said. Apparently the Doc and Engie are on some James Bond improv shit tryin’ to get power back, and Soldier woke up and just started goin’ apeshit with the shovel.”

“Hm. Hopefully our Demoman doesn’t allow him to bring down more rubble,” Spy said dryly.

“Heh. Yeah. He was in the background yelling.”

Quiet for a moment.

“Anyways.” Scout handed over the inhaler that Spy had outright forgotten about. “Got anything else hidden in that Jacket of Holding?”

Spy hummed, tucking the inhaler back away and fishing for a moment. “Currently? I have three knives and two guns, my disguise kit, matches, a sapper, a pocket watch, a flask—ah, my apologies, _four_ knives including the Swiss Army knife—and two things which I will not be telling you about.”

Scout fished in his own pockets. “I’ve got like, gum and pocket change and some string.”

“Why string?”

“For tyin’.”

…Fair.

Spy fished once more, suddenly remembering one pocket he didn’t check. “Ah. I do have—“ He pulled the item forth. “A deck of cards. No jokers, however.”

“Why no jokers?”

Spy shrugged. “They were gone when I stole them.”

Scout took the box, drawing the deck and starting to shuffle it. “Well, at least we’ve got somethin’ to do besides freakin’ out,” he said. Spy noticed that Scout still wasn’t prepared to look at the ceiling or walls around them, but he decided that was fair.

“Indeed.”

Scout finished shuffling, looking up at Spy with his characteristic grin right back in place as he took a seat on the ground. “You know how to play crazy eights?”

Spy raised an eyebrow. “Is that not the game you got in a fistfight over with Soldier because you cheated?”

“Damn right.”

Spy hummed, sitting across from him. “Very well. Let us play.”


	16. Sniper/Scout, "Wow, you look... amazing."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 👀👀 number 11 for speedingbullet, please, if you don't mind ❤️ -boston anon"
> 
> (somehow i deleted the ask when trying to format, but here you go!!)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #11: Wow, you look… amazing.

Sniper knew he was about to be flung into A Whole Situation the moment he opened the door and saw Scout standing there holding what seemed to be a stack of folded clothes and wearing a particularly distressed expression.

“Hey, uh, I have a question,” Scout said immediately.

It took Sniper a second to find his balance enough to reply. “Er… what?” he managed.

“Do you know how to do one’a these?” Scout asked, picking a strip of fabric up from the top of the pile and holding it out.

Sniper took it, unfolding it and blinking. “What, tie a tie?”

Scout nodded.

“…Yeah, I do. Why’re you asking, though?” Sniper murmured, eyeing the stack of clothes.

Scout exhaled, and words flooded forth like a dam breaking. “Because I’ve gotta wear a _stupid_ tie on a mission I’m not even supposed to be going on except Spy’s apparently busy on a different mission and so he can’t do it and I _guess_ I’m the second best option, and I don’t know how to tie one because I’ve never put on a real one by myself before and I can’t ask Spy how to do it because he’s outta town and I can’t ask Medic because he’s apparently working on somethin’ too damn important to unlock his door and I can’t even _find_ Heavy so now I’m askin’ you.”

Sniper needed a short pause after Scout finally stopped talking to sort out that short flow of information and figure out a fair response. “…Why did you think I’d know how to tie a tie?” he settled on.

Scout buried his face in the stack of clothes, groaning. “Because you wear a button-up shirt all the time, man, I don’t fuckin’ know! Can you help me with the tie or not?”

“I… well, sure. Not exactly like I’m… particularly busy,” Sniper murmured. “Just hold on a mo’.”

Sniper looped the tie around his own neck, flipped up his collar, and tied the tie with relative efficiency. A few seconds of fiddling and he had a simple but clean four-in-hand knot, which he then pulled loose and slid back off his head.

“There. Should be able to slide right back on over your head,” Sniper said, handing it back over.

Scout sighed with relief, visibly sagging with it as he took the tie. “Okay, sweet. I’ll be like, right back.” And then he was off and running towards the base.

* * *

It was about half an hour before a second knock came, and when Sniper opened the door, he felt like the wind got knocked out of him.

Scout looked a little flushed already, and ducked his head at Sniper’s expression, clearly misinterpreting his shock. “Fuckin’ hate getting dressed up,” he mumbled to his shoes. “I look like a goddamn waiter.”

Scout did not look like a goddamn waiter. He looked _good_. He looked _extremely good_ and it was really throwing Sniper for a loop.

His suit was clearly of pretty good quality, the shirt and jacket fitting snugly to his shoulders and waist, the light charcoal-grey color accentuating the color of his hair and the tie bringing to attention the bright blue of his eyes. He looked sharp, and for whatever reason this particular attire pulled Scout from his general look of young-adult maybe-teen vague youth, suddenly landing him squarely in the category of “attractive young man in his prime”.

“Wow, you look… amazing,” Sniper finally managed, realizing suddenly that he still hadn’t spoken.

Scout’s head jerked up from where he was glumly fiddling with his cuffs. He blinked. “Oh. Uh… wait, really? You think so?” he asked, a hint of hope in his voice.

“Yeah.” He gave Scout another once-over, and suddenly noticed that Scout’s tie seemed to be out of order. “Seems you messed up the loop I did for you, though.”

Scout frowned down at his tie.

“Get in ‘ere where I can see better, I’ll just do it again,” Sniper said, stepping back inside the camper and waving Scout in.

Scout managed to pull the tie loose, and Sniper flipped his collar up and set to work.

It was only as he looped the tie around the back of Scout’s neck that he realized how close that meant they were standing. Scout was looking at him curiously with those blue blue eyes of his.

Sniper felt his face heating up as he dropped his gaze to his work, starting to figure out how to do a proper knot when it was on someone else. “So what’s the mission, then, that you’re supposed to wear a suit?” he asked, hoping to dispel some tension.

“It’s just down at some hotel casino in Vegas, I’ve just gotta break an’ enter to like, steal a bag or somethin’. Should only take an overnight,” Scout said.

Sniper had to take a second run at the tie as he realized it was going to be too short. He undid it and tried again. “Surprised you never learnt how to do this. Bein’ a scout an’ all.”

“I wasn’t in the actual _Boy Scouts_, thanks,” Scout replied, laughing a little. “I do know how to tie some knots, just not, like, the fancy kinds like this.”

Sniper took a half-step closer as he fumbled again and had to restart. “It’s a bloody nightmare tryin’ to do this backwards. Only ever needed to do it for m’self,” he mumbled.

Scout paused for a second, then quietly cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah.”

Sniper messed it up for the third time and sighed, undoing it again. “Awright, just—hold still,” he said, then moved to stand just behind Scout, trying again.

It wasn’t until he was stood there that he suddenly noticed how very close to Scout that left him standing. Scout’s hair—still wayward and messy, but not in a bad way, really—was practically brushing his nose, and he could smell that Scout had apparently put on some kind of cologne. But it was also much easier doing what he was doing from the correct angle, and he was done in only a moment, pulling the tie to sit correctly, flipping his collar down, and was able to step back again in no time.

“There, done,” he said, and realized Scout had frozen stiff as a board. “You can relax now.”

“Uh, yeah,” Scout said, shaking himself, fiddling with his cuffs again. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He went around front of Scout and tucked the tail of the tie, then adjusted his collar slightly. “Good luck on the mission, by the way,” he said when he was done.

“I’ll be fine. Just, uh, gotta make sure I don’t fuck up my tie,” Scout jokes. “Hey, thanks though! I owe you one.”

“No problem,” Sniper replied, looking Scout up and down again. “Really.”

“Nah, I owe you,” Scout insisted, and then he was off, moving out the door and towards the base’s equivalent to a garage. “Later, Snipes!”

God help him. Scout looked even better while walking away.

He shut the door.


	17. Engineer/Sniper, "Please shut up."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: trucks & vans 47 and/or 62 ?"
> 
> hurt/comfort time with these two nerds. buckle in for some hurt. (warnings, i’m serious, this is heavy angst. warnings for symptoms of various mental health issues, self-destructive behavior, self-harm, and some somewhat sloppy comfort.)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #47: I can take care of myself just fine.  
#62: Please shut up. Just shut up.

The Engineer was a man who solved problems in a way that was both practical and efficient. Medic was overworked and reaching his breaking point on the field when minor injuries apparently called for full health kits, teammates therefore leaving him to die, so Engie prototyped the dispenser. Heavy expressed frustration over having to run laboriously across the whole battlefield only to be left to die in thirty seconds once he got to the point, so Engie broke the seal on more of his grandfather’s designs and made teleporters. When carpal tunnel struck and he failed to give it proper rest, eventually making his writing hand all but useless, he replaced it with a mechanical one that wouldn’t betray him, parts replaceable just in case it did.

People were trickier. Issues residing in the category of “emotions” were much more nuanced, much more difficult to sift through for answers. Nobody—not even the Medic—could blueprint the human mind, after all. (That wasn’t to say Engie didn’t try.)

Frankly, he didn’t know how to help Sniper. He just didn’t. But he tried to do what he could, what Sniper would tolerate.

Most of the time, that involved setting aside a plate for Sniper at dinner, wrapping it in foil when the man didn’t turn up. Making a full pot of coffee in the morning and leaving it out for Sniper to pick up when he finally showed up in the base. Idly offering to do some work on his van when he could hear it struggling to sputter to life, offering him one of his own beers from the cooler he brought over when he went to do the work. It involved leaving invitations, giving Sniper opportunities to visit with him, to see him, to be near each other, but never, ever forcing him.

And then break came, and on the first night, when everyone had long cleared out, he saw Sniper’s van still parked where it always was, lights on.

He made enough dinner for both of them, wrapping it and putting it in the fridge. He made the extra half-pot of coffee. The plates remained untouched. The coffee went cold. The light stayed on, and never once, in all the time Engie spent working in the garage, in full view in case Sniper wanted to walk over and maybe snatch up one of Engie’s beers, did he see the man leave the camper.

Day three, it was something lingering in his mind. Day four, it was starting to get a bit worrying. Day five, he couldn’t help but glance over fairly often. Day six, he was filled with outright concern, and finally cracked on the seventh, went over to the van, knocked on the door.

Engie was a polite man, but an honest one too, and so he wouldn’t be afraid to say that Sniper looked like absolute hell. His hair, usually slicked back with gel to keep out of his face, hung scraggly around his jaw, which was coated in an uneven layer of stubble. He had dark circles like bruises, eyes bloodshot, and a pale pallor to his skin.

“What?” he asked in a horribly hoarse voice, and it was suddenly apparent that Sniper hadn’t spoken a single word in at least a week, and Engie felt a pang in his chest.

“Just came out to check up on you, Slim,” Engie said. He glanced Sniper over again, and that nickname rang uncomfortably true. The way his shirt hung on him almost seemed… “You haven’t been in the kitchen. I wondered if… if you’ve been eating.”

Sniper shrugged casually in a way that didn’t at all answer the question.

“…Why don’t we head out and get ourselves a meal?” Engie asked, keeping his tone bright, positive. “Dinner, somewhere that serves nothin’ that don’t come with a bucket’s worth of grease. My treat.”

Sniper shrugged again, not meeting his gaze. “Sorry, Truckie. Don’t think I’ll make good company just now. Awful tired. Raincheck, maybe,” he mumbled, voice awfully rough, almost pained.

Engie was eyeing Sniper’s shirt. It seemed wrinkled, and sat almost awkwardly. As if it had been hastily donned. The buttons were misaligned. Sniper held himself awkwardly.

“What were you doing before I came over here, Slim?” Engie asked, voice level, keeping his expression neutral, already almost positive that he knew.

“Nothing,” Sniper said.

Engie just looked at him.

“Raincheck,” Sniper repeated, moving to close the door.

Engie shoved his boot in the door before he could do so, expression hardening at the light, almost imperceptible wince Sniper had made when he’d moved his arm. “Slim, you can make this an awful lot easier on yourself if you just let me in so we can talk,” he said, tone low.

Sniper looked at him for a few seconds. A few more. Finally he exhaled, hung his head, and took a step back to allow Engie entry.

The door closed behind him, Engie leaned against it, arms crossed, regarding Sniper, expression stone cold. “Show me,” he said simply.

Sniper fidgeted with his cuffs. “Show you what?” he asked, a last-ditch attempt.

“What you’ve done. Show me,” Engie said, not giving Sniper even an inch.

Sniper seemed to realize he was cornered, but hesitated regardless. “You’ll be mad,” he tried.

“I’m already mad. I’ll be less mad if you show me,” Engie replied evenly.

Sniper’s hand went to one of the buttons on his shirt carefully, and he set about undoing them.

His undershirt was exposed, a simple white tank, and then Sniper stopped again for a few seconds. He wouldn’t meet Engie’s eye. Already Engie felt concern eating a hole into his stomach at how thin Sniper seemed to have gotten in such a short amount of time.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Engie’s expression faltered for a moment before he set his jaw again. “Just show me already,” he said firmly.

Sniper’s gaze locked on the floor, and he shrugged out of his shirt, and Engie felt his heart stop.

“Oh, Slim,” he breathed, a lump catching in his throat, and Sniper squeezed his eyes shut.

Sniper’s arms (his forearms in particular) were red and blotchy, skin irritated and inflamed, bright red trails scoring their way up and down the skin there. It was only as Sniper went to clutch at his arms, as if trying to hide, that Engie suddenly noticed the small amounts of blood there under Sniper’s nails, the light smears where he’d scratched at himself hard enough to bleed, places where clearly the wounds had started to scab only to be scratched away again.

He set his jaw, clenching it hard to fight back waves of upset. Sniper still wouldn’t look at him.

He moved to take Sniper by the shoulders, guiding him to sit at the little table. He went to dig through one of the cabinets, finding a first aid kit without much issue.

“When’d you do this?” Engie asked sharply, starting to unzip it and sift through the contents.

Sniper hesitated for a moment. “A bit yesterday, day before. A bit just before you showed up,” he replied with a nervousness that admitted honesty.

“Arms out,” Engie said next, ripping open a pad and drawing the alcohol wipe from it.

Sniper clutched his arms towards himself. “I can take care of myself just fine,” he said firmly.

Engie gave him a glare hard enough that Sniper only surrendered after a moment, holding out one of his arms.

He bit back sounds of pain, head tipped low to try and hide the way he was flinching with each swipe. Engie worked his way over the whole of Sniper’s forearm, then opened another packet for his biceps, which seemed like it’d been scratched at fewer times, but more severely.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, so terribly weak, so horribly fragile, the most stubborn and stoic man Engie knew reduced practically to tears, falling apart right in front of him.

“Please shut up. Just shut up,” Engie said, trying and failing to keep the frustration out of his tone. He started spooling gauze a bit loosely around Sniper’s forearms. He had to take a moment to compose himself. “Damn it Slim, how’d you let it get this bad? My doors have been open. They’ve been open this whole time.”

“I’m sorry,” Sniper said again, quieter now.

Engie didn’t reply to that, just tying off the gauze tightly and moving to make another sleeve on Sniper’s bicep.

The process was repeated on Sniper’s other arm. “You never _have_ told me why you do this,” Engie finally said, despite the part of him that didn’t want to know, scared that it might just make some kind of sense.

Sniper shook his head to himself. “I get… caught, in my own head,” he managed, voice choked. “Can’t think. Start feelin’… paranoid. Keep thinkin’ I hear someone behind me. That I see movement. That I…” He had to take a steadying breath. “That I feel something crawling on me. On my arms especially. And I just… I try and scratch it off, scratch the feeling away. And then all at once I look down and I’ve done this. It’s worse when there’s scabbing.”

Engie finished wrapping his arms, moving to use the wipes to try and carefully clean out from under Sniper’s nails. “Have you tried showering? Something besides scratching to feel clear?”

“I’ve tried showering, yeah. Keep turning the water up until it burns me. Not better,” Sniper mumbled towards his shoes.

Engie moved to pull a few band-aids from the kit, starting to slice along the sticky part, and to wrap the band-aids over Sniper’s fingertips snugly.

Sniper watched him doing so, and suddenly understood what he was doing, why he’d wrapped his arms in gauze like that, why he was putting soft material over his fingertips. He released a dry sob, hunching forward to bury his face in Engie’s shoulder as he worked, humiliated, upset, grief-stricken.

Halfway through his other hand, Sniper finally spoke. “I’m a fuckin’ lunatic, Truckie,” he choked out, breath shaky as he tried to repress tears.

“No, you’re not,” Engie answered calmly. “You’re just a man, a scared one. And that’s alright. The part that’s not alright is you locking yourself away and hurtin’ yourself.”

Engie finished wrapping him up to make sure he didn’t cause any further injury, and moved to hold him, carefully so as not to accidentally irritate his wounds further.

“I’m sorry I got so frustrated,” he finally apologized. “I just… I know it ain’t a very good excuse, but really. I hate knowin’ you’ve gone and hurt yourself because you’re still scared to talk to me. What do I gotta do to get you to talk to me next time things get this bad? What do you still need from me?”

“I dunno. I just—I dunno. I’m _sorry_,” he insisted, pushing in closer.

“I know,” Engie said, holding him, all too aware of how quickly Sniper could begin to break. “I know. It’s alright.”


	18. Sniper/Scout, Frej

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[a little drabble (about 1.5k words) based on some speeding bullet headcanons made by vygravirovannyy because they have good taste and they said i was allowed to write fic for it so here y’all go. the ship is sniperscout, warnings for mention of alcohol and this being like completely unedited.]]

Oddly enough, every hint the team ever got was because of Sniper’s shooting glasses.

Most of the team half-confused them for regular sunglasses purely on the basis of Sniper damn near never taking them off—he wore them indoors, on trips to the market, and, hell, they were often the second thing Sniper put on immediately following his towel when they were all stepping out of the locker rooms post-match. They, combined with the mumbling, the smoking, the long spans of silence, all very much lent Sniper a brooding atmosphere, a seriousness.

A seriousness that, all at once, it seemed that Scout stopped believing to be true.

He started, what felt like all of a sudden, buzzing in his little circles around Sniper, making far-too-obvious attempts at conversation, jokes, laughs. And Sniper was silent, letting him do his various jokes and laughs, but largely not interacting. The team agreed amongst themselves that one day soon, Sniper would snap on the boy and send him through Respawn once or twice to get him to piss off. He’d done it before, mostly for the infractions on his personal space of “messing with his glasses”, first at Soldier (who indeed probably would’ve broken them), then at Demo (who was just doing a joke), and Pyro (who genuinely had just been curious).

Then one day, in front of the whole team, about half an hour before battle, Scout moved to do yet another joke in a fruitless attempt at making Sniper laugh, and he reached up and plucked the glasses right from his face.

Several members of the team froze. Others noted the energy that had gone over the room and looked around for the source.

Scout, by the time most of the others had caught on, had slid the glasses onto his face and started in on his latest but, doing a terrible, Boston-flavored imitation of Sniper’s accent, saying a few of the phrases that usually seemed to come out of Sniper’s mouth during battle.

Sniper’s knife hung at one of his sides, his SMG at his other. It wouldn’t even be hard to take Scout down just then, especially since he was largely unarmed and clearly not expecting retaliation.

But Scout turned out to be right. The only response from Sniper was broken eye contact, a little shove on the shoulder, some murmured phrase. Scout laughed, and moved to slide the glasses back into place, and apologized for spooking him.

Apologized. _Apologized_. Scout of all people _apologized_.

Medic and Engie raised their eyebrows at each other. Demo averted his eyes with a pointed look towards Heavy, and sipped from his bottle.

The second hint wasn’t in front of everyone, it was just in front of about half of the team, the remainder that were present at a little celebration bonfire. Pyro was there, and Demo was there, and Engie was talking to Heavy when he noticed what was going on, falling silent mid-sentence.

Scout had been relatively quiet for a few minutes, alcohol having smoothed him down a bit, sipping from his bottle and staring off into space. Next to him, Sniper had fallen asleep at some point, hat tucked down, arms behind his head, leaned back against the same log Scout had picked. All at once Scout was looking, then leaning over towards him, and Engie opened his mouth to tell Scout to stop, don’t wake him up or do whatever other ridiculous thing he was thinking just then.

But Scout didn’t, just gingerly sliding the sunglasses off of his face, folding them carefully, hanging them on the collar of Sniper’s shirt. A muscle in Sniper’s face tightened, and Scout just as lightly tugged the brim of his hat down until his eyes were shielded from the light of the fire. The muscle smoothed back out again, and Scout looked at him for a few long, long seconds, something difficult to read on his face.

Then he looked up and saw Engie and Heavy watching them, and he leaned back to his original position, staring pointedly off in the other direction and going back to his beer.

The last hint wasn’t even so much a hint towards the puzzle, more of… a solution, the page you flip to when you want to check your work, or maybe to cheat. And Pyro was the only one to see it, and was sworn to secrecy shortly after, so there wasn’t really anyone who could mind the cheating.

It was very late, and Pyro was stress-baking on account of a few too many arguments between teammates combined with a particularly ridiculous episode of The Brady Bunch. The TV set was still on in the other room, with Scout, Sniper, and Demo all sat around watching whatever was on it. The telltale snoring from the couch signified that Demo was very much asleep, and there was a murmuring just barely audible over those two noises.

Pyro thought they heard their name for whatever reason, and ducked their head out to investigate, and then became very quiet.

Scout and Sniper were stood very close together, talking quietly. Sniper had each of his hands at a terribly respectful place at the midpoint between Scout’s hips and his waist, and Scout’s hands were in turn clinging to the front of Sniper’s shirt, undoubtedly wrinkling it, almost untucking it from his pants with how he was twisting fretfully.

All at once, Scout’s hands loosened, and he reached up to pull the glasses from Sniper’s face, holding them loosely at his side as he looked over Sniper’s face. Sniper broke eye contact at once, gaze falling to the floor at their side.

“Look at me,” Scout all but whined, tipping Sniper’s chin back up towards his own face. “I wanna see you.”

Sniper seemed like he had something to say about that, but Scout still had two fingers crooked beneath his chin, so he just closed his mouth again.

“You’ve got pretty eyes,” Scout murmured after a quiet moment.

“Right, mate,” Sniper replied, the corner of his mouth ticking up.

“No, really. This real nice greenish-grey sorta color. It looks good.” Scout shifted on his feet, only slightly. “You look good.”

Sniper’s mouth ticked up just that much further, and his gaze flicked away again.

“Nah, c’mon, look at me. Just for a little bit, okay?” Scout said, almost pleading, hand falling to take hold of the collar of his shirt.

“You know I’m no good at that,” Sniper protested, almost under his breath, and Pyro really had to strain to hear the next sentence, only catching the latter half of it. “…too intense.”

“Well, sometimes intense can be good, y’know, in little bursts,” Scout said, and tugged his collar a little. “Please? For me?”

And Sniper took a slow, even breath, shoulders rising and falling in a gentle wave, and moved to look Scout in the eyes dead-on.

Sniper said something else just then, a moment later, but apparently even Scout couldn’t hear it. “What was that?” he asked.

Sniper said it again, and Pyro still didn’t hear it, but Scout laughed. “Well, nobody’s stopping you, huh?” he replied, and tugged his collar again, and Sniper bent down to kiss him.

A moment later, the shades slipped and fell right out of Scout’s hand, clattering to the ground.

They broke apart in an instant, and Scout was gasping, horrified, scrambling to pick them back up in the same moment that Sniper froze entirely. He was babbling out apologies, and Sniper just gently took the glasses, looking over them carefully.

“Are they alright?” Scout all but demanded.

Sniper hesitated. “There’s… a scuff on the lense,” he admitted, clearly trying very hard to keep his voice even.

And Scout was apologizing again, so feverishly, and Sniper was repeating a steady mantra of “it’s fine, it’s alright Scout, it’s fine, I can fix it, it’s fine—“ until he looked over and saw Pyro and froze up. Scout followed his line of sight and froze up very similarly.

“Oh. Hey, Mumbles,” Scout said. “Uh. Sorry about the noise.”

Pyro waved him off, giving a few words of comfort.

“You, uh… what, baking or somethin’ like that?” Scout asked, nervous energy running through his hands and making him fidget.

Pyro nodded and gave an affirmation.

“Cool, cool.” Silence. “Uh, how long you been standing there?”

Pyro shrugged and gave a loose reply.

“Uh… so you saw… the, uh…” Scout stammered, and suddenly he was having trouble keeping eye contact, too.

Pyro nodded, and was suddenly met with the combined babbling of both Scout and Sniper, first making excuses, then making admissions, then demanding Pyro’s secrecy.

They agreed without too much thought, and said, well, they hadn’t seen a _thing_, really, just Scout helping Sniper with his _glasses_, wasn’t that right? And both Scout and Sniper had nodded and agreed far too much, and that was that.

Until they did that in front of everyone else, Pyro figured, which they probably would. It was only a matter of time.


	19. Sniper/Scout, Fenway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["dxmurei asked: Hi! Just wanted to say I adore your writing :) I can’t get enough of it! Ever considered sniperscout where Scout drags Sniper to a game at Fenway Park?"
> 
> well NOW I’m considering it!!! well NOW that’s on my brain!!!! (warnings for probable baseball inaccuracies and talk about sniper gettin real freaked out about crowds. also supreme gayness)]]

“—and that guy there is Tony Conigliaro, he’s been on the team for a while now and he really doesn’t play games out there, and that over there with the big nerd glasses is John Curtis, new guy, it’s his first year and he hasn’t been on the plate hardly at all yet, thank god, and he’ll probably stay in the box the rest of the game considering who we’re up against—“

Scout had barely stopped talking since they got within a line of sight of the historic Fenway Park, and while usually his chattering was somewhat calming for Sniper, a good distraction and a source of laughter, it was suddenly significantly less effective. Sitting in a baseball stadium with several hundred rows of seats behind him filled with complete strangers in late June heat was, as Sniper had decided, extremely stressful.

“And the, er, the other team,” he tried to say, throat dry. “That’s the New Jersey blokes, right?”

“New York. The fuckin’ Yankees. That’s one reason the stadium is so packed, we hate those guys, it’s a whole thing,” Scout explained, eyes fully lit up. He was fully in his element, gesturing with both hands and talking a mile a minute, and if Sniper didn’t know otherwise he would ask if he’d somehow found a store in Boston that sold his terrible energy drinks and bought the place out. On one hand, Sniper liked seeing Scout so happy about something, but on the other hand, it was pretty clear that Scout wasn’t actually paying great attention to everything around him, he was so wrapped up in his excitement.

Sniper focused on taking a deep breath and thanked his foresight not to eat breakfast that morning—surely he’d have thrown it back up by now.

One opinion that Sniper very decidedly kept to himself, at least partially because he cared about Scout very much and preferred that they continue dating, was that entertainment sports were objectively the worst thing on the planet. They were wildly hyped up by the audiences, with practically cult followings, hosted in sardine can arenas with many people yelling and food and drinks being spilled and jostling and the rows of seats that you had to squeeze by other people to escape from and the smell of sweat and conflicting foods and unclean bathrooms and blaring intercoms that he could hardly understand the words through and players potentially getting severe injuries just for the amusement of dozens of people watching them and—

He didn’t like them, was the long and short of it. The experience, the concept, any of it. He was okay with Scout going on about the latest game he saw on TV or heard on the radio, with hearing him recite statistics by heart, with the other man’s general enthusiasm, at least somewhat because he knew Scout probably had a big dream at some point about being a baseball player. But something about all the theatrics and noise just gave Sniper a headache.

Maybe it was having grown up in Australia, where every day was just kids challenging each other to constant shows of strength, starting fistfights over cricket matches, wrestling being both a competitive sport and as common of a delay as unexpected traffic was. He had no idea. Whatever it was, he very much didn’t want to be in that stadium.

Except… well, he’d wanted to do something special for Scout’s birthday, and he’d been a little homesick recently, and he’d been really excited about the upcoming game and all, and Sniper knew how much it would mean to him to go see it in person. He knew it would make Scout happier than anything else in the world to give him a chance to see his favorite place in his hometown. When Sniper showed him the plane tickets, he’d looked about ready to get down on one knee then and there.

And Sniper thought he could handle it, he really did. But now here he was, chest tight, hands shaking, stomach performing an acrobatic routine, very much on the verge of ruining this whole gift just because he couldn’t keep his nerves in check for just a couple of hours.

He really needed a cigarette, but he’d told Scout a few weeks ago that he was trying to quit again. He really, really needed a drink, but he wasn’t sure if that was even allowed in a public baseball park, and didn’t know if he could keep it in his stomach even if it was. He really, really, _really_ needed Scout to do the thing where he held both of Sniper’s hands and quietly talked him down from where his brain was trying to push him over the edge. But he could stay calm. He could hold it together at least into the second inning, surely, then find somewhere quiet to get some air, then be all set for another two innings, rinse and repeat. How many were there, six? He was fairly sure it was six. He just needed to stay calm.

The crowd around him screamed as some man hit the ball with the bat and sent it very, very far. He tried his best not to visibly wince. Not that it particularly mattered—Scout didn’t notice his plight, too busy also jumping to his feet and cheering.

He could do this. He could do this. He wasn’t going to have a meltdown in a baseball stadium. He wasn’t going to have a freakout at 2pm on a weekend. He was better than that. He could do this.

“Hey, hey,” Scout said suddenly, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt insistently. “You’ve never been to a baseball game before, we should get some food! We got this special hot dog here, the Fenway Frank, it’s been around, like, longer than _Medic_ probably. They got a whole special recipe about it, most stadiums got hot dogs and stuff but Fenway’s dogs are the _actual_ best ones on the planet, seriously. They’re probably about to switch, Yastrzemski is up next but the guy after him’s a total schmuck and we’re already on two outs, so maybe that’s when we can go see if we can snag—“

Sniper just nodded, momentarily losing track of Scout’s voice as a group of men nearby started howling with laughter, making him have to focus hard on not tensing up.

“—and would you look at that, Seibert fucks it up, who’s surprised? Okay, let’s go!” And his hand was being taken, and he was being pulled along out of the row and up the isle in the same direction as plenty of other spectators.

He was barely present at all as they waited in line at the concession stand, focusing on using his time in a relatively quieter area wisely, trying to be stealthy as he took deep breaths, clenched and unclenched his fists in the pockets of his vest (the vest, hat, and sunglasses being the parts of his uniform that he rarely took off, even when otherwise in civilian clothes). Scout meanwhile continued on his little lecture, going on about some history and facts about the park itself, then funny stories about times he went to Fenway with his brothers, then offhandedly mentioning some player who he’d idolized growing up and didn’t quite know why for the longest time but now that he was thinking about it maybe he just thought the guy was hot—and hey, they’re at the front of the line, could he get like three, actually four franks and—

Somehow, Sniper found himself standing out of the way of foot traffic holding four hot dogs and a bag of popcorn as Scout shuffled around the wild assortment of food that he’d purchased just so he wouldn’t drop anything on the way back to their seats.

Sniper took a quick stock of himself and realized all at once that he would definitely not be making it back to their seats.

Scout’s mouth was moving, and Sniper was hearing the words somewhere behind the sound of laughing and yelling and cheering and the announcer and the sound of sneakers on concrete, but the words seemed to just pour right back out of Sniper’s brain like water through a sieve. He looked down at his hands and saw the way they were trembling, almost on the verge of violently, muscles clenched tightly enough to almost hurt as he was wracked with tremors all the way up his arms—

“—iper, really, I’m getting freaked out too now, you listening?” Scout asked, and Sniper lifted his eyes again. His entire expression was contorted with worry, with fear, all the earlier excitement and joy and light extinguished and replaced with alarm. Scout moved to shove packs of candy into his own pockets and his bag almost frantically, freeing up his hands, and he quickly relieved Sniper of what he was holding as well, freeing up a hand so that Scout could take it in his own, still fumbling a little bit. “What’s up, what happened? What’s wrong?”

Guilt, like a shovel to the back of the head, immediately dizzying in intensity. The first words to pop into his head were an apology, but they and everything else were driven out as there was another holler from the crowd up above. Belatedly, he realized that maybe he wasn’t dizzy from the guilt, maybe he was dizzy because his breathing was shuttering too-fast through his chest. His mouth moved, and he said something, and he was pretty sure it was supposed to be comforting, but Scout was just frowning further, moving to start pulling Sniper along by the hand, quickly through the crowd.

One good thing about the East Coast, Sniper was finding out, was that nobody cared about what anyone else was doing the majority of the time, and a grown man leading another grown man along by the hand like a toddler didn’t draw any strange looks, or any looks at all.

He blinked back to reality as he realized that things were much quieter all of a sudden, and he glanced around, noting that there seemed to be significantly fewer people. They were by the wall regardless, and the hot dogs that Scout had been so excited about were no longer in either of their hands. He knew that because instead Scout had laced their fingers together, was squeezing his hands in a way that was immediately comforting.

“Hey, is this any better?” he asked, his volume kept low. Sniper nodded. “Okay. What happened back there? You really freaked out on me for a minute. Looked pale as a sheet, started hypervascilating.”

Sniper took a breath or two to steady himself a bit, swallowed hard. “Hyperventilating,” he corrected, voice weak despite his best efforts.”

“Whatever, that thing where your breathing is all wrong,” Scout brushed off. “Whatever the hell it’s called. Seriously, what set you off?”

A few more breaths to steady himself, to search for words in his scattered brain. When that didnt work, he tried talking anyways. “Noises, crowds, the jostling, the, the people standing behind me practically breathing down my neck, it’s all, just, it’s just a, it’s a lot,” he managed, just barely tamping down on a stutter.

Scout squeezed his hands again. “Sheesh, even stadiums? Usually these places are way better for my paranoia stuff,” he said.

“Not just the work thing,” Sniper corrected, words tumbling out in a way that was far too clumsy and a bit too fast and practically unintelligible. “Just my regular, nervous, sort of, just my usual nerves but they’re, worse with crowds. Bigger crowds are worse.”

Scout glanced around their vicinity very briefly. The crowd only seemed to be thinning more and more. “Babe,” he finally said, voice very quiet, “I thought you said it wasn’t a big deal, that you didn’t think it’d be bad for you to show up at a big game.”

Guilt again, because he probably did say that at some point. “I just thought I could try anyways, it’s your birthday and, and all of that, and I wanted to do something good for you, and, and I didn’t want to ruin it just because I’m a bloody wreck is all—“

Scout’s eyes widened in surprise, and he was releasing Sniper’s hands, working out of his hold to instead cup his face in his hands. “Babe, I’m not worried about the birthday thing, I’m worried about _you_, are you serious?!” he exclaimed, still quietly. “I’m just upset that we’re even out here if it’s gonna freak you out this bad!”

“Thought I’d just try,” Sniper protested, practically under his breath, “I thought since, I thought, you’re always absolutely aces, you’re good to me, thought I’d try and—“

Scout was shaking his head. “There’s a difference between, like, when you listen to Sex Bomn with me for the twentieth time even though you don’t even like that album, versus flinging yourself facefirst into a full-blown freakout just because you wanted me to get to see a game in person for a weekend trip!”

“You’re always,” Sniper tried, and his voice wobbled and gave out, so he tried again. “You’re always telling me about home for you, and I just thought you’d like really being able to show me in person instead of just pictures and pointing at the screen on the telly when a game is on.”

Scout just looked at him for a few moments. “Snipes, you know they give _tours_ of this place, right?” he asked, incredulous. “Like, actual tours? When it’s basically empty and not half as loud?”

Sniper looked right back at him.

“And you could’ve just got tickets for like, the game a few days ago? Which was against fuckin’ _Baltimore_, which is _Baltimore_, which nobody gives a shit about because it’s _Baltimore_, so it wouldn’t’ve been even like a quarter of the way as packed?”

“The hell is Baltimore?” Sniper asked, beginning to see that perhaps he was somewhat slightly an idiot.

“Exactly.” Scout squished his cheeks under his hands, released, squished and released. “And it ain’t even about seeing a game, or like, headed to a Fenway Park with you. I was just…” He muddled for words. “I was just excited because you wanted to… I mean, y’know. Go to Boston with me, see all this stuff from before you knew me. Even if one of us woke up this morning with, like, a total stomach bug or a wicked hangover or something, and we couldn’t go to the game, I would’ve been okay with it. Maybe disappointed about not getting a real actual gen-u-ine Fenway Frank from the place itself, but it’s… as long as I got to spend the day with you, maybe got to show you a little bit of what all I grew up with, that’s already a _way_ happier birthday than I ever thought I’d get past the age of like, twenty-four. I figured it was all downhill from here, and then…”

He trailed off, eyes trailing over Sniper’s face slowly, like memorization, like recall. Sniper realized that his hands had stopped shaking at some point, and reached up to thread their fingers together again. “And then?” he prompted, voice quiet.

“It’s my birthday, you don’t get to make fun of me for being a sappy son of a bitch,” Scout warned, and there was that light back in his eyes again, his little dimple making an appearance at the corner of his mouth.

“Fair enough,” Sniper shrugged.

Scout squeezed his hands. “I thought it was all downhill from here, with all the, y’know. Having to get a job killin’ people thing,” he shrugged, maybe more casually than he should’ve been able to. “Figured it was just gonna be me getting older, that I’d already sorta hit my peak at some point in high school before everything went to shit. Figured it was just gonna be worse and worse. And then I looked around one day and… I figured out that I had you around. And the rest of the guys, the team, love ‘em to death—don’t tell ‘em I said that—but especially you. And, I dunno.” He smiled at Sniper. “Upswing, y’know?”

Sniper, had he not a crippling fear of embarrassing himself in public and the ability to do so without probably maiming them both, would’ve dipped Scout down into a kiss right then and there. As it was, he settled on pulling Scout into a hug and fighting back the sting in his eyes. “Don’t do that,” he warned, voice somewhat steady. “You know I get all emotional when I go mental like that. I _will_ start sobbing all over you.”

“Do it. Cry,” Scout challenged firmly. “I’ll break you, so goddamn help me. C’mon, do it right now!”

“Nope,” Sniper said, squeezing hard and smiling at the wheeze he managed to elicit from Scout as he squished the air out of him. “Won’t do it. Can’t make me.”

“Don’t even test me,” Scout managed once he was released from the embrace, rolling his shoulders and getting the air back in his lungs. “I’ll fuckin’… compare thee to a summer’s day or some shit. I’ll get all poetic. Swear to god.”

“Uh huh. And how much Shakespearicles do you have memorized?” Sniper asked.

“All of it,” Scout bluffed without missing a beat.

Sniper rolled his eyes, even as he smiled. “Where are our seats, by the way?” he asked.

“Other side of the stadium, basically. I walked us over to the Yankee side, it’s usually emptier,” he replied, and leaned over to the ledge on the wall right nearby them. Sniper blinked, surprised at himself for not having noticed their hot dogs and drinks and whatnot lined up precariously. “Guess you were right about me not wearing like, literally all of my Sox merch.”

Sniper nodded, paused for a moment. “I was really out of it, wasn’t I?” he asked, guilt resurfacing.

“Hey, don’t do that,” Scout chided, elbowing him and handing over his food. “You’re still at a net positive for good boyfriend deeds for the day. You flew me across the country on a weekend trip to see a rivalry game in my hometown with a week’s notice even though you knew it’d freak the hell out of you. You’re still the best boyfriend ever. Of all time.”

“That’s you, actually,” Sniper replied.

“Shut up and take my compliments. Birthday boy’s orders,” Scout said, hefting his bag to sit more comfortably on his shoulder. “Birthday order number two, let’s get the hell outta here. We’re way down anyways, and I don’t see the Yankees letting us have a comeback. If we go now, I can probably catch the last inning on the radio back at the hotel.”

“Any other birthday orders?” Sniper asked, bumping shoulders and elbows with Scout, walking as close to him as he could get away with as they began making their way out.

“Yeah. Eat that hot dog, it’s fuckin’ delicious. These three are mine.”

Sniper shrugged and obliged.

(Scout was absolutely right. It was delicious.)


	20. Sniper/Scout, "Spin the bottle."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 39 for speedingbullet 💕"
> 
> hell yeah man! (warning for alcohol and sloppy drunks)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #39: Spin the bottle kiss.

“Christ alive, why do we even let you drink anymore?” Sniper grumbled, once again pushing Scout off of his shoulder and into a sitting position.

“Because it’s funny,” Demo smirked across from him, watching with no small amount of amusement as Scout leaned right back onto Sniper’s shoulder again.

“How come I’m never allowed to have fun?” Scout managed despite his mouth clearly not quite co-operating with him in terms of making words clearly and correctly. “You’re an _asshole_. You always get on my case about shit. How come you and them—and Demo and Doc and Heavy and, fuck, where’s Soldier?”

“He left half an hour ago,” Demo chuckled, also a bit tipsy but nowhere near where Scout was—or even where Sniper was.

“Well, he _was_ here. And everyone else always gets to gets drunk except me! It’s not_ fair_,” Scout said emphatically, clinging to Sniper’s arm now.

“Well why do _you_ have to keep leaning on me and clinging like that?!” Sniper snapped, far more emotive than he usually allowed himself to be around everyone else, generally the one hint the team got that he’d had enough to drink.

“Because it pisses you off,” Scout replied, cheeky now, and Sniper shoved him straight over. “WOAH!”

Demo exchanged a look with Medic and Heavy, who were both a bit intoxicated as well by then, but were sober enough to roll their eyes at the shenanigans.

“How come you never have _fun_ ever?” Scout asked next, really laying into Sniper now, shoving him on the arm once he got back into his seat and moved it back a safe distance. “You spend _allllll_ your fuckin’ time being mad and grumpy then you get drunk and you’re just g—you’re madder and grumpier! Why can’t you have fun?”

“I can have fun!” Sniper protested, significantly more affected by the criticism than he would generally allow, and Heavy had to stifle a laugh as Medic mouthed the words “they’re gone” at him.

“Let’s—well I’m bored so let’s play something,” Scout said, clearly having already decided.

“Like what, seven minutes in heaven?” Demo snorted.

“Oh my god, we’re not high schoolers, Demo!” Scout groaned loudly.

“Spin the bottle, then,” he suggested next, clearly having a lovely time playing his own little game of “rile up the piss-drunk mercenaries”.

Scout considered that for a moment. “Oh-my-frickin’-fuck that’d be really _funny_ though, right?” he asked Medic, blinking owlishly. “Like that’d be _funny.”_

“Hilarious,” Demo instantly agreed, thrilled at what turn this had all taken and the stories he’d have to tell Scout in the morning.

“Hey, hey mister uh—hey mister guy who can have fun, why don’t you go first then?” Scout challenged, taking the basically-empty bottle of beer from the tabletop directly in front of him and holding it a few inches from Sniper’s face.

“I’m not a _child_,” Sniper retorted.

“Well maybe you’re just a chicken then huh? Maybe you’re a chicken? A little bitch? You’re a little bitch?” Scout taunted.

Sniper scowled, taking the bottle forcefully and setting it on the table with determination. Demo’s eye was wide, and both Heavy and Medic’s eyebrows had risen considerably. He gave it a spin hard enough to send it clinking off of another bottle, shifting the course entirely. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was irony, but the bottle ended up pointing directly towards Scout’s section of the table.

Sniper looked rather pleased with himself all in all, especially at the shock on Scout‘s face. “What’s wrong, lover boy?” he goaded. “Did little, did the Boy Wonder over here not think this far ahead?”

“So what if I didn’t!” Scout challenged right back, face burning up. Medic was only barely managing to stifle a laugh.

“Too chicken to play a little game, are you?” Sniper prodded, just as viciously as Scout had not moments before.

“I ain’t chicken!” Scout declared, and grabbed Sniper by both sides of his face, and pulled him in and kissed him directly on the mouth.

It would’ve been a more poignant moment had Scout not pulled a little too hard without thinking of the amount of distance he’d put between their chairs, because it barely lasted even a second before they both lost their balance and tumbled out of them.

“Idiots,” Medic scoffed, rolling his eyes as Demo and Heavy both practically wound up rolling on the floor with how hard they were laughing. He did so again when he heard that Sniper and Scout, still on the floor, hadn’t stopped bickering.

“What do you _mean_ it doesn’t count?” Sniper practically spat.

“It got messed up! Do-over!”

“What, mad that you’re a bad kisser, pretty-boy?”

“I’m a fuckin’ _great_ kisser, camper-van!”

_”Prove it.”_

_”Fine! Get over here!”_

“Repressed idiots,” Medic self-corrected, less venomous but no less irritated.


	21. Sniper/Scout, "Accidentally witnessed."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 52 for sniperscout!"
> 
> this is vaguely in reference to something a friend said and THATS OKAY]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #52: Accidentally Witnessed kiss.

“So besides the kitchen thing, I think we can wrap up this meeting,” Miss Pauling said, tone bright, and there was a general commotion as all of the mercenaries tried to get up from the too-small and crowded table without anyone whapping anyone upside the head. 

“Have a safe journey,” Spy drawled as he left the room.

“Sure thing!” she chirped, starting to shuffle papers into order. “Oh, I need for… uh, Scout, Engie, and Sniper to all stay behind real quick, okay?”

Scout immediately took a seat again, while Sniper seemed fairly hesitant and Engie waited to finish up what he was saying to Soldier before he sat back down. The room was cleared fairly quickly, and quiet fell as the other mercs made their way off down the hallway, voices fading into the distance.

Miss Pauling waited until it was fairly quiet before she moved to pull a thick manila envelope, stuffed almost to capacity with papers, and passed it to Engie. “New orders, feedback on old projects, and details for when pickup is going to be on everything you’re actually done with,” she said, and Engie nodded, taking the envelope. “Besides that, the Administrator is really happy with your work. Keep it up!”

“Yes ma’am,” Engie said cheerfully, tipping his hardhat at her and leaving the room, giving a little nod to Sniper and Scout as he left.

“New contract?” Sniper asked, tone calm, assuming he was next.

“Actually,” Miss Pauling said, sighing a little as she pulled out a folder, and pulled a packet of paper from within that folder, and flipped that packet open, “I’m supposed to give you guys a reprimand.”

Sniper‘s expression went stony. Scout looked nervous. “Uh. Why’s that, Miss P? The boss is mad at us?” he asked, tone stiff.

“Sort of.” She pushed up her glasses to rub at the bridge of her nose. “Okay. So you two know there’s the booth on-base with feed to the cameras in the hallways and the common areas and stuff, right? And that’s on a recording loop dating to about a week prior in case of any emergencies so we can get insurance claims, blah blah blah. And there’s nobody who monitors it unless something goes wrong or one of you guys breaks in there, which is _not allowed.”_

Sniper’s expression hadn’t shifted an inch. Scout looked a little less nervous. “Uh, yeah? We know that,” he said.

“Well there’s also cameras on most of the fields you guys do battle on,” she said. “Point caps, stuff like that. And that’s how the Administrator keeps up with the matches. She watches the point caps or where the briefcase is, stuff like that.”

“Okay?” Scout said slowly.

“But she likes to have someone sift through the footage sometimes on the slower battle days to see if anyone’s doing things they shouldn’t be doing out of sight of the combat—usually it’s just Spy being off-sides, Soldier doing… Soldier Things, you guys doing that thing where you dance around with the enemy team instead of fighting each other, stuff like that.”

Sniper might as well have been a plaster cast for how much expression he had going on. Scout was back to looking nervous with a vengeance. “Oh,” was all Scout managed to say.

Miss Pauling sighed, holding her face in her hand. “Look, I haven’t told the Administrator, partially because I’m not sure if she’ll even care since usually it’s between matches anyways, but she might get really mad at you if she catches you. But you two—you’re—I _know_ both of you have enough free time after work to not need to do _this_ between every other match.”

She shook the folder out onto the table, and both Scout and Sniper leaned forward to look at what seemed to be about three dozen print-outs of assorted pictures from the camera feed. All of them featured Sniper and Scout, front and center. Scout’s face was red, and Sniper’s expression almost cracked, face tightening.

“Seriously, just—at least just find a blind spot in a camera or something, it’s getting ridiculous,” she said, well into exasperated. “Or just make out on your own time, I don’t _care_, but—c’mon. Quit it.”

“You’ve got it, Miss P,” Scout said, the most sheepish he ever got, and Sniper mumbled something that sounded like “understood”.

“Okay. Great. Dismissed,” Miss Pauling said, waving them both off. scooping the pictures back up and starting to get her stack of papers in order.

Both Sniper and Scout were quiet all the way down the hallway and around the corner, at which point Scout promptly shoved Sniper.

“God damn it! You said nobody would see us!” he accused in a stage-whisper, face positively burning.

_“You_ said you thought the cameras turned _off_ between rounds!” Sniper challenged right back, volume similarly dropped, facade of calm breaking right in half.

“I thought they did!” Scout replied, and buried his face in his hands. “Fuckin’… shit, man. How long has she been waiting to call us out like that? I can’t fuckin’ believe this. Shit.”

Sniper sighed, squeezing Scout’s shoulders. “Well. At least it wasn’t as much of a disaster as you thought it would be,” he said after a second, clearly trying his damndest to find the bright side. “Here I thought we’d get sacked for sure.”

“Yeah… Miss Pauling is the best,” Scout mumbled begrudgingly.

“Exactly. So, we just… save it until after work,” Sniper said slowly. “Or… I suppose find one of those blind spots she mentioned.”

Scout nodded, hands falling back to his sides. He glanced over Sniper briefly. “I mean, we found out somethin’ else cool,” he added.

“And what’s that?”

Sniper was suddenly crowded into the wall, Scout stood practically on his boots, grinning up at him. “The cameras in the base aren’t monitored,” he murmured.

Sniper needed to take a moment to process that, swallowing firmly, glancing off to one side up at the camera lording over the hallway. “Suppose you’re right,” he confirmed. “So?”

“So get the fuck down here,” Scout laughed, pulling on the collar of his vest, and Sniper obliged.


	22. Sniper/Scout, "Sitting in the other's lap."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 74 for speeding bullet😍"
> 
> aye aye captain. (warnings for severe sauciness but a fade to black before anything more happens. free of sauce up until the line break in the middle)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #74: Kisses Where One Person Is Sitting In The Other’s Lap.

“Is this your way of hinting that you want attention?” Sniper asked, raising an eyebrow at the Scout that had just deposited himself in Sniper’s lap right there in the middle of the common room and looking down at the magazine he’d just tossed to the floor from out of Sniper’s hands.

“It’s my way of tellin’ you that you _forgot_,” Scout corrected, and that was when Sniper realized that Scout’s glare was a lot less pouty and dramatized than usual, and had some very real irritation underlying, and he realized that he might be In Trouble.

“Uh,” Sniper started, already frantically searching his brain for whatever he forgot. “Well. Er. The thing is. That. Well. That’s the thing. Um.”

Scout let him stammer for a few more seconds before sighing hard through his nose. “Six-thirty? My room?” he prompted impatiently. “Like, _every_ week? For the past _three months_, unless you tell me you’re busy? With something more important than the fuckin’, the bi-weekly issue of—“ he looked over his shoulder at the magazine on the ground, “Of generic Australian hunting magazine?”

“Oh god,” Sniper managed. “It’s Saturday.”

_“Yeah._ It’s _Saturday_,” Scout deadpanned. Over Scout’s shoulder, Sniper could see Heavy and Medic exchanging a pointed look over their game of chess, and Engineer trying and failing to muffle his laughter, burying himself further in the notebook he was writing in.

“Um.” Sniper lifted his arm to look at his watch, and his eyes widened. It was past eight PM. “How long were you… waiting?”

“An hour and a half,” Scout said, expression tightening, and Sniper felt like he’d swallowed his own kukri. “Then I went to try your camper. Then I was gonna go to the kitchen to get something to eat because I was hungry but I was _gonna_ wait until you showed up then we could _both_ get something to eat. And on the way to the kitchen, there he is! The man himself.” Scout looked pointedly down at the plate that was sitting on the table just to one side of the chair Sniper occupied. _“Having eaten already.”_

Some amount of the intense, lava-hot guilt burning its way out of his chest and into his face must have shown, because Scout only glared for another few seconds before he softened, the anger giving way to just hurt.

“I got worried,” Scout murmured, much too quietly for anyone else to eavesdrop on the two of them. “I thought something happened. It ain’t like you to forget stuff. Don’t scare me like that.”

“I’ll, er. I can cook you something if you’d like,” Sniper managed, voice a little choked. “To make it up to you.”

“That’d be a good start,” Scout acquiesced, relaxing slightly. He leaned in to give Sniper a kiss, which Sniper returned, also relaxing slightly at the show of affection, fierce and crowded with concern as it was. When they pulled back again a minute or so later, Scout had apparently calmed down enough to make a joke. “Oh, you motherfucker, you had mac and cheese too, didn’t you? God damn it.”

“There’s more left,” Sniper assured quickly, hands squeezing at Scout’s sides briefly before he tugged upwards, encouraging Scout out of his lap.

Scout led the way towards the kitchen. As Sniper passed by him, Engie commented quietly, “Boy’s got you whipped, son.” Sniper did not argue that point.

He heated back up the extra mac and cheese, even going so far as to fire up the toaster so Scout could do the ridiculous thing he liked where he’d butter toast and put the mac and cheese between the slices to eat like a sandwich. Sniper didn’t get it, but it was one of the younger man’s favorite meals. Apparently it reminded him of home. Scout, meanwhile, mostly just took to sulking a little ways down the counter. He brightened a little bit when Sniper finally set food out in front of him, and his mood visibly improved as he started wolfing down his meal. He only slowed down about halfway through the second sandwich he’d made, and Sniper felt the guilt reverberating around his chest again, because wow, Scout had clearly been _really_ hungry.

“Y’know why I’m extra mad?” Scout finally said, breaking the silence between bites of macaroni sandwich (or, as he’d unfortunately named it, the Maccy Sand). “I was really excited to show you a surprise.”

Sniper blinked. “What?”

“I had a surprise for you. And you fucked it up because you just, you didn’t show up.”

“What was it?” Sniper asked.

“I dunno if you deserve it now,” Scout said petulantly, taking another significant bite of his third and final sandwich.

“C’mon, Bilby, please?” Sniper asked, more earnest than he usually allowed of himself.

Scout looked him up and down. “We’ll see,” he finally decided, and went back to eating.

-

Once he was done eating and Sniper had rinsed off their plates, they moved to Scout’s room, where it became immediately obvious that, in Scout’s increasing stress, he’d started cleaning up to try and get his mind off of things. Sniper took a cautious seat on Scout’s actually-made bed, and Scout promptly moved to sit in his lap again, legs perpendicular to Sniper’s.

“Scared the hell outta me,” Scout muttered, kissing Sniper hard to emphasize the point. When he drew back again, that frown had returned. “Don’t do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” Sniper said, honesty in his tone and in his face and in the way he squeezed at Scout’s hip where he’d put a hand to keep him stable.

“I know,” Scout sighed, and leaned in to press his face into the crook of Sniper’s neck. “Just… damn it. I had plans and everything and now I can barely remember them. I’m all frazzled.”

“For the surprise?” Sniper inferred.

“Yeah. I… it’s gonna take me a minute to remember what all I wanted to do.”

Sniper was starting to get a little confused about what the surprise was. Nevertheless, he stayed quiet and still to let Scout think, even as the other man kissed his way idly up the side of Sniper’s neck, ending at his temple.

“Okay,” Scout finally said, kissed him on the lips briefly. “Okay. So there’s a surprise.”

“Right,” Sniper said.

“And you’re gonna look for it,” Scout said next. “You’ve gotta find it.”

Sniper looked around the room, deciding that the task would probably be infinitely easier since Scout had apparently cleaned. “…Right.”

“So we’re gonna play hot or cold so you can find it easier.” Scout added.

Sniper laughed. “Right? So it’s a gift, then?”

“Yeah, sorta. You’re gonna love it. Or… or maybe not, I dunno. I hope you’ll like it. Anyways.” Scout kissed Sniper again, still briefly, before he moved to sit next to Sniper instead of across his lap.

Sniper stood up and moved to the center of the room after a moment of consideration. “Ready when you are,” he said.

“Cool. You’re cold.”

Sniper thought for a moment, then took a few steps towards Scout’s closet.

“Ice cold.”

He paused, then moved over in the direction of the dresser.

“Still cold. Hypothermia. Frostbite.”

Sniper rolled his eyes, taking a few steps towards where Scout was.

“Warmer. Warmer,” Scout intoned.

Sniper nodded, moving to walk to the bedside table, taking a knee.

“Warmer, but not hot,” Scout said quickly.

Sniper raised an eyebrow at that, moving to look under the bed now.

“Still just warmer.”

He looked up at Scout, eyebrows furrowing.

Scout was grinning. “Hotter.”

He felt a grin pulling at his own face, and he moved to shove Scout down, leaning over him in a way that would be menacing were they not dating.

“Hot,” Scout laughed.

“You are,” Sniper agreed, and that just made a Scout laugh more. “Is it you?”

“I’m not a surprise,” Scout tried and failed to deadpan, startled into giggles as Sniper assaulted his neck with ticklish little kisses.

“But you are an absolute _treasure_,” Sniper pointed out, pulling back enough to press a kiss to Scout’s rapidly-reddening cheek.

“True,” Scout agreed. “But no, I’m not the gift. Close, though.”

Sniper raised an eyebrow at him, shifting to get a bit more comfortable in the way he was leaning, a hand finding its way to Scout’s side.

“Hotter.”

A moment of consideration before a Sniper grinned, that same hand tugging on Scout’s shirt to untuck it before migrating beneath to deliver a pinch to his nipple under his shirt.

Scout gasped, arched despite himself. “C-cooler,” he said, voice wobbly. Sniper pinched at the other one for good measure. “Still cooler—Snipes, why do I feel like you’re messin’ with me?”

“I’m not messing with you, I’m playing the game,” Sniper defended, pinching the first again and laughing at Scout’s enthusiastic yet frustrated reaction for a moment before he relented and his hand returned to Scout’s waist, then tentatively slid down towards his hip.

“Warmer,” Scout said, and was he flushing further from Sniper’s messing around, or was he getting embarrassed? To test Sniper’s growing theory, his hand skipped down to Scout’s thigh, then just above his knee. “Colder again, I think.”

Finally Sniper just moved to rest his hand on Scout’s lower hip, looking at him knowingly, and Scout was flushed clear up to his ears.

“Hot. Burning hot,” he self-corrected, and Sniper only hesitated for a second before he moved to pop the button on Scout’s pants.

His breath mysteriously disappeared. He quickly moved to try and pull fabric down and away to get a better view of what he was looking at, and once he was sure his eyes weren’t decieving him, he looked back up at Scout.

“Found it,” Scout said weakly, managing a tight smile, reaching down behind himself presumably to adjust the way that the—the goddamn _lingerie_ was sitting on him, maybe for comfort.

For a moment, the euphoria gave way to that knife-like guilt again. Because Scout had waited around his room for well over an hour, sitting around and almost definitely worrying about whether Sniper would enjoy his gift, and Sniper knew he was impatient on a good day and would damn near tear his own hair out on a bad one, and for over an _hour_ he’d sat around hungry and self-conscious and waiting and eventually worrying and fearing the worst and—

“Gorgeous,” Sniper said the moment he caught back up with the present moment, hand smoothing down Scout’s flank again, and the nervousness disappeared from Scout’s expression slowly over a few moments. “A bloody beaut, look at you. Get—get out of these,” he implored, pulling meaningfully on Scout’s baggy uniform pants.

He got up to allow Scout room to get free of them, and suddenly it occurred to him—had Scout been wearing those all day? He’d have to ask later. In the meantime, Scout pushed and pulled him to maneuver him so he was sat against the pillows at the headboard before straddling him again, wearing much the same expression he’d worn when he’d done so earlier that evening, but this time with a very different subtext, with his shirt hanging down to tantalizingly hide the gorgeous view from him. “Sitting around all day excited to show you this, and you _forget_,” Scout muttered, echoing Sniper’s earlier thought process.

“Sorry,” Sniper repeated simply, throat dry, having a hard time keeping his eyes away from the place where he could _just_ catch sight of lace below that shirt if he really craned his neck.

“I’m still kinda mad at you,” Scout seemed to decide aloud. “So y’know what we’re gonna do now?”

“Hmm?” Sniper managed, voice threatening to break.

Scout smirked, tilting his chin up. “You’re gonna make it up to me.”


	23. Engineer/Spy, "Giggly kiss."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["1merfairy asked: 27. Giggly kiss with EngieSpy please!!!!!"
> 
> hell yeahhhhhhhhh sweet dads!! (warnings: alcohol mention)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #27: Giggly kiss.

Spy knew exactly the game that the Engineer was playing and quite frankly he refused to take any part in it.

One thing that Dell has apparently _unfortunately_ realized was that, after so long of knowing him as someone who was generally smalltown-polite friendly at most, reserved in most ways excluding when his temper flared up (both in and out of battle), the various shows of unadulterated affection that he would sometimes spontaneously decide to dispense were enough to catch Spy off guard. Usually their interactions consisted of Spy deciding to approach the Engineer (both of them knowing full well that Spy wasn’t someone who would be found unless he wanted to be), then Spy leaving the offer on the table that they could perhaps be more romantic than their standing about and discussing work, then Engineer either taking it or leaving it from there.

Generally it was Spy initiating things, having to “put himself out there”, having to hold out that first hand. Partially because Engineer did sometimes feel uncomfortable, did sometimes feel strange about the compatibility of a short, stout southerner with a mean streak a mile wide and a French international agent of espionage wearing a suit worth his bodyweight in gold. Spy making it clear that he enjoyed the Engineer’s attention tended to soothe those worries. It also seemed that sometimes, Engie perceived the Spy as being… flighty. Easily startled. Which he was _not_, thank you very much, he just knew it was bad practice to let his guard down too terribly often (it would make him sloppy on the job) and the Engineer kept sneaking up on him.

Regardless, that meant that whenever Dell was the one to approach Spy with the flirting words, with the taking his hand to kiss the inside of his wrist, with the leaning in and fiddling with the edge of his mask or his tie or his lapels, well, it was unusual enough to be surprising, and often caught him off guard.

And apparently Dell found it very entertaining to catch him off guard whenever possible. He thought that, quote, “I’ll never get anything honest out of you unless you don’t get a chance to think about it first”.

And he had a point, but Spy didn’t enjoy that fact.

Dell’s latest game, apparently, was getting Spy to laugh more.

“You know, I wouldn’t press the issue, but it feels less like you’re not the type to laugh and more like you don’t _wanna_ laugh,” Dell said to him one day, sat on a bench outside with him, having been convinced to take a break from working on his truck with the promise of shade, a beer still cold enough to have condensation rising up over the surface of the bottle, and company. “And most of the time when you don’t much wanna do somethin’, it’s either that you’re just stubborn, or you’re hidin’ something.”

“I’m not one of your equations, Laborer,” Spy deadpanned, content with smoking rather than drinking beer. “I’m a bit more complicated than that. I would have thought you’d pick up on that by now.”

“See, and then when you get real mouthy like that, that means you’re mad that I’m right,” Engie said next, smiling a little.

Spy fumed for a moment, glaring at him. “I could be rude for plenty of different reasons,” he finally said, tone lofty. “You can’t be sure.”

“I’m sure enough,” Engie shrugged, and hid his grin at Spy’s huff with a drink from his bottle. “I’m gonna get a real laugh outta you one of these days. Not the one where you’re being sarcastic, or when you’re cackling on the field, a real one. A happy one,” he decided.

Spy rolled his eyes. Dell and his obsession with Spy being _happy_. “Feel free to try,” he deadpanned.

The first attempt was Engineer trying to tell him jokes between matches, when he was half-distracted. Simple, silly ones, half ridiculous and half infuriating, finally resorting to puns when he couldn’t think of anything else. The best reaction he got was Spy being unable to surpress grins, huffing through his nose. The second attempt was made one evening late at night just before they went to bed, Dell suddenly digging fingers into Spy’s sides with intent. All he got was one half-alarmed cry and Spy escaping to the other side of the room within a heartbeat, then storming away and not speaking to Engineer for nearly two weeks, both for trying to tickle him and for startling him so badly.

He found it nearly on accident.

It was late—Spy finally stopped being angry with him and would even trust him to share the same bed again—and they were both tired. The Engineer had been busy all week, and a Spy had mostly spent his time catching up on a bit of reading, and overall they both found it very nice to have some time together again. Dell was coaxed away from work, and Spy was especially enjoying having someone warm and soft holding him, helping chase away the cold of the desert from his admittedly-bony frame.

Dell pressed a kiss to his shoulder suddenly, and Spy smiled, feeling all the warmer. “Finally feeling like paying some attention to your lover for once?” Spy asked, unable to get a sufficient amount of annoyance in his tone to make the comment biting.

“Finally caught you, more like,” Engie drawled, squeezing him where he had arms around Spy’s middle and pressing a kiss to his collarbone.

Spy managed to stifle a laugh only as it was starting to leave him, remembering too late that Dell had decided to play the ridiculous game of his. Admittedly, the game felt far away just then, and losing felt strangely alright with him. He tried to shake it off, to push away his own sentimentality for a moment. “Caught me how?” he asked, not having a very easy time with it.

“Off spending all your time in your smoking room,” Dell drawled next, nosing at his pulse point. “Probably listening to opera or some other unbearable thing.”

“Insulting opera,” Spy deadpanned, having to bite hard at the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling outright. “How very American of you, Laborer.”

“I’ll show you American—“ Dell murmured darkly, leaning up and starting to press rapid-fire kisses across Spy’s neck, under his jaw, across his cheeks.

He couldn’t help it, he really couldn’t. Maybe he was going soft working for Mann Co. Maybe he was going soft in general. Whatever it was, it only took a few seconds before Spy lost control over his giggling, then struggled against laughing outright.

“Dell!” he managed between wheezes, choking, stifling, trying to do anything he could to keep from laughing. “Dell, stop it!”

“No!” was his reply, also laughed, rumbling through the place where their chests pressed together in the most wonderful way, and then he was right back to kissing all up and down Spy’s neck again.

He giggled. He chuckled. He choked. He wheezed.

And then he snorted.

It was like a dam breaking. All at once, he had no control over his laughter, and it sounded almost too-loud in the empty room around them. He raised a hand to his own face to try to muffle himself as he continued snorting every few breaths, sure that his cheeks were on fire, absolutely mortified even as he started struggling to catch his breath.

He didn’t even have enough air to begin defending himself, or trying to distract from it, or to get angry with him for forcing the issue. And before he could get that air back, Dell had a hand—the flesh-and-blood one—pressed up against his cheek, warm and comforting. “Darlin’ if that ain’t just the _cutest_ damned laugh I’ve ever heard in my life!” he gushed, laughing a bit himself, apparently finding it infectious.

“No!” Spy protested breathlessly, half-tempted to move away from the hand. “It’s ridiculous!”

“It’s _precious_,” Engie insisted, pinching his cheek lightly as if for emphasis. “That’s what you were hiding from me?”

“Of course!” he managed, eyes squeezed shut hard.

“Well stop it! I love it!” Dell said, laughter seeping into a sort of warmth, a sort of care, that made Spy feel an entirely different kind of overwhelmed.

“If you tell _anyone_—“ he started to challenge.

“I’d never,” Dell interrupted.

Spy knew that. He knew that Dell wouldn’t. Maybe that caught him off guard too.

Words escaped him for a long while, but finally he just pulled Dell’s face towards his own. The hint was taken, and Dell kissed him, firm but sweet.

“I’d never,” he repeated once they parted, softer now.

“I know,” Spy said, not sure of where this sudden bravery came from, but half-convinced that if he asked, the Engineer would be able to tell him.


	24. Engineer/Spy, "Exhausted parents."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["snoezibol-ao3 asked: If you're still taking requests, how about 23 for the dads EngieSpy?? ^^"
> 
> [80s diner voice] order of dad content, double the dad, coming up! (no warnings)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #23: Exhausted parents kiss.

Spy stormed into the workshop fiercely enough that it kicked up sawdust near the door, so luckily Engie at least knew there was something wrong up front.

“What’d he do?” Engie asked, lucky enough to have the benefit of knowing that six out of seven of the people that generally could have potentially pissed off Spy are men.

“He’s such a _brat_, why does he feel the need to argue _every_ point with me!?” Spy started in, indignant tone rising with every step he took as he began pacing the strip of space in front of the door until he switched entirely over to ranting and raving in French. Ah. So it was Scout again.

He waited until Spy was starting to get out of breath with the combination of yelling and pacing and waving his arms around before he interrupted. “Have you considered that maybe he doesn’t like listening to you because you’re always talking down to him?” he suggested, keeping his tone neutral and his eyes on the work in front of him.

“Because he’s pompous and stubborn and always acts like he knows everything!” Spy blurted, stopping dead in his tracks and throwing his arms out.

Engie took a moment to pull his goggles off of his eyes to instead let them rest on his forehead so he could better level a deadpan look at Spy.

It took a few seconds before Spy would even dignify that with an answer. “Why are you looking at me that way?” he snapped.

“I can’t help but wonder where the boy gets it from,” Engie said flatly.

“I beg your pardon, his mother is a very lovely woman who—“ Spy stopped talking for a second. “Oh, how dare you.”

“Look, half the issue is that you’re both stubborn as hell and won’t admit when you’re wrong, other half is that neither of you will talk to the other with any respect, other half is that you’re too damn similar and don’t want to admit it,” Engie outlined, the same message he’d said at least half a dozen times before.

“For an Engineer, you have some faulty math, _mon beau_. You have said there is a half three times,” Spy pointed out rather than addressing what Engie was saying.

“Which is why you two have a problem and a half with each other,” Engie agreed. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, all I can do is give you advice. But my advice is to try and just be _nice_ to the damn kid for a minute and see how that works.”

“He doesn’t trust when I am nice,” Spy said flatly.

“And why the hell would he when you’ve been nothin’ but mean to him the whole time he’s known you professionally?” Engie pulled his goggles back into place and set back to work again. “He respects you a lot, but the way he grew up, he’s just gonna keep biting you back for as long as it takes for you to stop tormenting him. He’s never gonna quit this job and leave when all you’re showing him is one more challenge. Maybe if he trusted you, then he’d take your advice. But respect and trust are two different things, doll.”

Spy considered that for a few moments. His feathers were still ruffled, but more out of stubbornness than anything else. “He respects me, you said?” Spy deadpanned, clearly not believing it for a moment.

“Spy, you’re older, you’re taller, you’re wealthier, and you make it seem like you could have damn near any partner you could choose, man or woman. You’re book-smart and well travelled and speak five languages.”

“Six,” Spy corrected quietly.

“Six languages,” Engie amended. “And all he’s got going for him, far as he’s concerned, is that he can run fast, jump high, never live up to his brothers, and never know his father. And when he meets you, what do you do right out the gate? You criticize him. Is it a big wonder that out of all the older guys here, I’m the one he’s decided is a good mentor figure? If you played your cards right, you would’a been first pick. Instead he turned to me.”

Spy’s shoulders were sagging.

“Look,” Engie said after a second of quiet, putting his tools down even as he kept his gaze low. “I’ll put in a good word for you. Honest I will. But I’m not gonna tee the boy up for you to just knock him right back down a few more times. It ain’t fair to him, and then he wouldn’t trust me anymore, and then he won’t have _anyone_ he’ll listen to about his wellbeing unless you try to call his mother to get her on his case.”

“You may have a point,” Spy admitted, which was about as close as he ever got to saying “You’re right and I was wrong”. He stood for a moment before he started making slight adjustments to his suit in the wake of his minor tantrum, adjusting his tie, his cufflinks, his mask, brushing off his lapels. “Thank you for… talking me down, I suppose.”

“You’re welcome, doll,” Engie said easily. Quiet for a moment. “You ever gonna come over here and kiss me hello? Hardly saw you today.”

Spy almost startled, and immediately went to oblige. Admittedly it was a tired kiss, short, but that close, they could both feel it between them, a kind of satisfaction over decisions reached.

“Speaking of unruly young people,” Spy started in once they broke apart, “I heard you had a phone call with Miss Pauling. How is she doing?”

Engie sighed and launched into the latest news on their chronically overworked boss-coworker-friend, and the next time Spy saw Scout, he was civil for a record twenty minutes before an argument broke out. A miracle. The Engineer couldn’t help but be proud.


	25. Pyro/Scout, "One small kiss."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Could you do 65. With Pyro/Scout please?!"
> 
> did my best, prompt ever so slightly altered because this idea was Hilarious to me. (no warnings)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #65: One Small Kiss, Pulling Away For An Instant, Then Devouring Each Other.

“Babe, we gotta _go!”_ Scout complained, bouncing on the balls of his feet, bat in one hand and Pyro’s axe in the other.

Their reply was a flippant something and a hand waving at him to just take it easy, they were almost done. They couldn’t help the fact that lacing their boots up to battle-ready tightness took a little longer with their extra-thick gloves, and they wouldn’t even be late, so he could just take it easy. At least, he was pretty sure that was the gist of it.

“The gate’s gonna unlock any second, then we’ll only have like a minute until we gotta be _out there_,” he said, only getting more impatient with each passing moment.

Pyro waved him off again, still just tying their shoes.

Another fifteen seconds until they were finished tying their boot off, then they were taking a second to refill the fuel on their flamethrower, then they were standing up.

“Fuckin’ _finally!”_ Scout crowed.

Pyro then took a few seconds checking their flare gun.

“Come _on!”_ Scout whined, bouncing at almost twice the speed of before, glancing fretfully between Pyro and the door out onto the field. “I’ll totally leave you here!”

Pyro stopped what they were doing entirely to turn their head up to level a look at Scout, flare in hand.

He stopped bouncing for all of two seconds before he started up again. “Okay, so maybe I won’t, but I’ll be pissed if you make us late!” he self-corrected.

They said something along the lines of “we won’t even be late!”, exasperated now, finishing up checking over their gun with no rush at all and putting it back in its holster. Then, and only then, did they hold out a hand for their axe. Scout passed it over quickly (handle-first and blade-down, as he’d learned after something like three lectures on gun and weapons safety), and moved as if to bolt for the gate.

Pyro planted their feet, stowing their axe.

“What _now!?”_ Scout demanded, agitated and absolutely not afraid to show it.

Pyro tapped the side of their mask, the part that one might call the cheek.

“Oh, _c’mon_ babe!” Scout implored under his breath, pointing at the rest of the team waiting by the gate, several of whom were watching the spectacle.

Pyro tapped their mask again, the very picture of stubborn determination.

“Okay, fine, okay—“ Scout leaned in and pecked them where directed, exactly slow enough that he wouldn’t be accused of rushing. “Okay so we can go now!”

Pyro, however, seemed to disagree, because they looked at him for only a few seconds before sweeping him up in an embrace, physically lifting him off the floor bridal-style and making all sorts of sickly-sweet kissy noises, muffled by the mask.

“MUMBLES!” Scout protested loudly over the sound of teammates whistling and cat-calling and overall making fun of him, his face bright red. It was also that moment that the gate opened with a noisy clatter, and the team passed through. “BABE! C’MON!”

Pyro laughed, just moving to carry Scout through the open gate, still making cooing noises at him, much to his dismay.

They weren’t late.


	26. Sniper/Scout, "Returned from the dead."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["scoutrans asked: Sniperscout 34 because. Well"
> 
> arin im gonna make you SAPPY AGAIN NERD (warnings for mention of violence and blood)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #34: Returned from the dead kiss.

Sniper didn’t know what to expect when he opened the door to his camper, but it wasn’t Scout.

“Hey,” Scout said, looking him up and down.

Sniper’s mouth moved wordlessly for a few seconds before he found something to say. “Uh. Hey,” was all he could think of, and he winced at it.

Scout’s eyes fell off to one side of him, hands in his pockets. Sniper knew that something had happened to Scout during the months after the team disbanded, something that made him hesitant all of a sudden, fidgety, but he didn’t think he had any right to pry. “Remember when you said you’d take me on a road trip when the war was over?” he asked, tone flatter than Sniper remembered it being, but maybe that’s what he deserved, because…

“Yeah,” Sniper admitted, voice quiet. He _had_ said that. But he’d said it because he thought he’d have time, thought he’d have a few months or years to try and get the courage to tell Scout a couple things, thought that when they went on a road trip it’d be something they’d do together not as the unlikely and close-knit friends they’d somehow stumbled into being, but as… “Yeah, I do.”

Scout looked up at him, only for a couple of seconds. There were dark circles under his eyes, a hallowness to him that felt uncomfortably like looking in a mirror. “Well, guess you have another chance,” he said, setting up like he was certain he’d be knocked right back down.

And Sniper hadn’t exactly thought of it that way. The team had banded back together again for the Grey Mann business (excluding Engie, who was apparently doing okay but simply couldn’t make it back for some reason he couldn’t say), returning to the base and everything once the Classic Team was sufficiently dead, only for Miss Pauling to suddenly break the news, that very morning, three days into their arriving there, that their final job had been completed and the money had been wired to their accounts and they were all free to go. In a way, it really was a second chance, one he didn’t think he particularly deserved.

He’d been getting a lot of those lately.

“Okay,” was all he could think to say, still too surprised to think of anything clever to say.

They left the next morning before sunrise, and if Sniper was being honest, he didn’t really have a destination in mind. He just started driving northwest, thinking about pine trees and quiet and time to think. Luckily, Scout didn’t ask for a destination. He just sat down in the passenger seat and turned on the radio.

The radio sufficed to fill in the uncomfortable silence between them for three days of driving. There was no talking, really. Even after months apart, they were capable of reading each other’s signals well enough that directions weren’t necessary. They’d wake up just before sunrise to eat a quick brekkie and start driving, they’d pull over once a day at a rest stop to top off the fuel and for Scout to go inside to get them something to eat, and they’d eat it standing up and leaning on the hood to stretch their legs, and then they’d keep driving until just before it got dark, then they’d pull over somewhere for the night to eat and go to sleep. Sniper would set up a tent for them, they’d both grab their sleeping bags, rinse and repeat.

No words needed. It hurt something in Sniper’s chest to realize that Scout still remembered what food he liked from their various 2AM weekend excursions to damn near anywhere that was still open and willing to sell food to strange half-drunk men.

Sniper hadn’t thought about their lack of words at first. Not until the moment when they’d briefly gone through somewhere with particularly bad radio reception and Scout couldn’t find a station for something like twenty minutes. That was the time when he most felt their silence, the empty space between them. From then on, once he noticed it, he didn’t have the courage to break the spell, the task seeming more and more daunting with each passing day of quiet, more and more like it’d need to be something truly important to not seem hollow, fake.

It was Scout who finally broke the silence.

“Aren’t you tired?” Scout asked, voice so quiet that Sniper was almost positive that he imagined it. But he looked over at Scout out of the corner of his eye, and Scout was looking at him instead of staring out the window. He swallowed hard, and realized all at once that he hadn’t actually spoken in a couple days.

“What do you mean?” he asked, voice a little sandy.

Scout kept looking at him, and Sniper had to break eye contact to look back at the road again. “It’s just… getting pretty late. We should stop for the night,” Scout said.

Sniper realized he was right. It had gotten dark at some point. They usually stopped sometime around sunset so Sniper would have plenty of light to set up the tent, but he’d lost track of time. Zoned out. Suddenly he became aware of how bone-deep tired he was. “Just a little further,” he mumbled, voice still rough, and Scout didn’t respond to that, just looking back out the window.

When they finally pulled over, it was into a proper campground, with fire pits and grills and picnic tables and everything. He set up a little fire before anything else, happy with the fact that it wasn’t exactly prime camping season and there were places for them to go be by themselves. The tent was up next, put up as quickly as he could without risking mistakes, partially because he was sure Scout was tired.

But Scout sat and waited by the fire instead of turning in the moment he could, just watching the flames idly. His face looked even more sunken in the flickering light, and it unnerved Sniper a little to see the way that life had faded out of his eyes just over the course of the little time they’d spent apart.

For a while, quiet. Sniper decided he might as well cook what meat he had left in his camper before it went bad, now that he had the chance, and he did so, bland as it was with so minimal a kitchen available to them. Scout ate without complaint, without even really looking at Sniper.

It occurred to him, trying not to be obvious about the way he was watching Scout, that the reason he unnerved Sniper so much was because he looked half-dead in a lot of ways.

The illusion was only furthered when Scout tossed his paper plate and napkins into the fire and moved to grab his bag.

Every morning and every night, Sniper now knew that Scout had a brief routine. Usually he’d do it while Sniper was setting up or taking down the tent. He had to change his gauze daily, the wound still lingering in some ways from where he’d gotten slashed open. He was no longer on the verge of death, but a few days of on-and-off medical fluid whenever Medic managed to dig up another batch didn’t do much for him, it seemed. Even after years of hunting and killing, Sniper couldn’t force himself to look directly at the wound marring the entirety of Scout’s side, instead watching the detached set of Scout’s expression as he rewrapped it.

But Scout caught him looking, apparently, because he spoke again. “Doc says I‘ll probably never climb again,” he murmured.

It felt very much like he was shot through the chest again. “Yeah?” he asked, voice soft.

“Yeah. And I just…” He paused as he finished up with re-wrapping the wound, pulling his shirt back down into place. “I just didn’t wanna go home until it healed.”

Sniper kept his expression controlled. That could take weeks, months even. And the scarring would probably never properly go away.

“And I know you probably won’t wanna deal with me that whole time,” Scout said next, giving him a tight almost-smile, immediately averting his eyes again. “But… I dunno. However long you’ll let me stick around.”

Sniper didn’t know how long he planned to “stick around”. There was the house, he supposed, probably still falling into ruin, but not much else to go back to.

“I heard about your parents,” Scout finally said, as if he read his mind. “I’m sorry.”

Sniper still didn’t know how to reply to that when people said it to him. He went with a simple “It’s okay.”

“Nah,” Scout replied easily, back to staring into the fire. “But… I dunno. Would you mind giving me a warning in advance for when you want me to leave you alone? I just wanna call my Ma to tell her when I’m going back.”

“Alright,” Sniper said hesitantly.

They started speaking again, mostly in little ways. A day’s rest at the campground before they hit the road again did wonders for morale, and communications being opened between them made things feel… easier, in little ways. In Sniper mentioning “Give me five minutes” when they went to a rest stop before he walked away to use the bathroom or something, in Scout going “hey, turn it back” when Sniper changed the radio station. For some reason, it made Sniper choke up a bit when one day, Scout so quietly murmured a “good night” out into the darkness of the tent.

They reached the upper parts of Washington, and hooked a right. They made it through Montana and into North Dakota before Scout asked the all-important question.

“Where are we going?”

It was asked over another campfire, at yet another campground, half-abandoned. Sniper stoked the flames for a few seconds before he decided on his answer.

“Anywhere you’d like,” he finally murmured.

Quiet. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he seemed to decide. They kept driving.

By the Great Lakes, they still didn’t have a destination, so Sniper broke out a map for the first time and figured out how to try to get them to Florida, for no reason other than the fact that it was far away, and bought him time, something he’d already run out of twice before—once when the team disbanded, and once when he died.

But they were talking more. They found themselves trying to catch up with each other without quite saying that they were catching up. They were back to discussing things, news mostly, although apparently Scout had gotten the time to do some reading during the months before the team got back together.

It was one night when Sniper was changing for bed and Scout ducked in to ask him a question that a topic was finally broached, a landline finally stepped on.

“What the hell is that?” Scout asked, sounding startled, and when Sniper looked up, Scout was staring at his chest. At his stitches.

He pulled on a shirt before anything else, suddenly self-conscious about the way the very tail-end of the stitching peeked out of the short sleeves under his arms. “It’s from when I got shot, and I…”

Died. The word hung in the air between them, paralyzing, horrifying. All at once, real.

“Did I tell you they tried to hang me?” Scout suddenly said.

Sniper blinked. “What?”

“After the trial. We lost the trial. They tried to hang me.”

“I thought Pauling saved you,” Sniper said hesitantly.

“Yeah.” Scout’s jaw was tight. “After they already pulled the lever. When you hang people usually it’s supposed to snap your neck. It didn’t. She got me down about a minute after they pulled the lever. Then I almost died on the way to get Heavy because I got clawed by a bear. Then Saxton Hale and his buff girlfriend almost killed me. _Then_ I got stabbed fighting the Classics.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Sniper asked, voice tight.

“Because I need you to know that I get it.”

Sniper didn’t have words, all of a sudden, and Scout hesitated for a second longer before finally just ducking back out of the tent, looking a little disappointed. “No, wait,” he said, following Scout out quickly, into the light of the campfire, where he looked far too much like a corpse, far too much like delirium in a hallway, almost dying alone. “Wait.”

Scout just stared, waiting. Waiting for Sniper to be the one to speak first for once.

“When I got shot,” Sniper said, and his voice was already choked, damn him. “Even before that, I just, alone in that house, I…” He swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. “I thought about it a lot. Regretted it a lot. How I never got to say goodbye.”

Scout’s expression softened a touch, and he looked a little closer to the way he’d been before, a little more life back behind his eyes, and it gave Sniper the courage to keep talking.

“I wish I did,” he managed. “You deserved a real goodbye. You deserved something, anything. I should’ve said something.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t _want_ to say goodbye to you. And I knew if I ended up on a road trip with you, I’d… I’d never want to let go of you.” He wished desperately that he had his glasses on to hide his eyes, to hide how damp they were starting to get. “You were the first good thing to ever happen to me and I was scared you’d be the last and I just… I didn’t know what to do. But you deserved better. You always deserved better.”

There was suspicion in Scout’s expression now—not like finding out bad news, like realizing someone was trying to surprise you with something, like good news, like_ hope_. Scout swallowed hard, looking down at the fire for a second, thinking over his words. “I know where I wanna go,” he said.

“Where?” Sniper asked, weak, damn everything he was _weak_.

“Take me home to Australia with you.”

Hope like nothing else he’d ever had before. He wanted to ask, “Forever?”, but all he managed was “Really?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed again, not meeting Sniper’s eyes. “We died and came back to life, man. I think that means we get to do whatever we want now.”

“Whatever we want?” Sniper repeated.

When Scout looked back up at him, he seemed more curious than anything else. He looked down between them, took a half-step closer, close enough that the toes of their shoes were lined up and touching each other. Then his gaze rose again. “Whatever we want,” he confirmed.

Out of all the things that came to mind when Scout said that, there was only one thing that he really cared about doing in any meaningful way, and he was lucky, so much luckier than he ever thought he’d be, because he didn’t even really need to move to do it. He leaned down to kiss Scout, and Scout met him halfway.


	27. Sniper/Scout, "I almost lost you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 11. An “I almost lost you” speeding bullet kiss!!!"
> 
> me, like a puppy that just heard the word “walk”: oh excuse to write End Of The Line sniperscout? oh hey would you call this a situation where maybe i could write sniperscout End Of The Line fic perhaps??]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #11: “I almost lost you” kiss.

“Climbs out the window of a bloody _car_, nearly gets crushed to death by _debris_, nearly gets sent flying off my van and off a _cliff_, jumps onto a moving bloody _train_ and almost gets his head chopped off by _bridges_ and, and _tunnels_, and, and, and—“

Sniper had barely stopped lecturing him since he’d gotten back to the outpost, even as his teeth refused to stop chattering. Having been trapped at a cliff ledge in frigid snow with open windows, unable to move enough to roll them up lest he unbalance and be sent careening to his demise, had left him both frozen and rattled in several senses of the word. Scout was pretty sure that Sniper would end up getting a cold or something. Scout was lucky that he’d elected to hitch a ride on the train they sent back to the BLUs rather than trying to hike it or waiting around long enough for one of them to get a car, or else there was no telling how long Sniper might’ve waited there.

“Well, I’m fine,” Scout shrugged, reaching to tug back into place one of the many blankets they’d piled on Sniper to try and warm him back up. He was still concerned in the back of his mind about frostbite, but Sniper had seemed to be okay in a cursory check, and likely couldn’t be convinced out of his blankets to check more thuroughly anyways.

“But you nearly _weren’t_,” Sniper insisted.

“Well I could say the same to you!” Scout half-snapped. “Almost drove off a fuckin’ cliff, almost froze to death—“

Sniper huffed, shaking his head. “First bloody action we get on this _damn_ outpost, and it’s a _train_,” he griped, still wracked with shivers. “God I hate it here.”

Scout heard the telltale click of the kettle across the room and stood to go to it, practically scrambling to his feet to do so. He picked up the empty mug in front of Sniper before he walked over, refilling it with the next meager batch of hot chocolate. He kept asking for coffee, but Scout knew he needed to get some sleep once he was warmed up, and he was drinking something hot for the sake of warmth anyways, not to stay awake. He brought the mug back, and Sniper shrugged away enough of his cocoon to take hold of it in one trembling hand.

Some of it, Scout thought, might be theatrics. Sniper couldn’t handle cold to literally save his life, and tended to be the one piling on more blankets and layers between the two of them, even besides the fact that Scout was thin as a twig. But it also concerned him that it still hadn’t quite stopped, with them going on something like half an hour of Sniper finally being properly out of the cold. They’d done what they could to stabilize the van where it was, knowing damn well they couldn’t do more until they got another vehicle to help tow it back from the ledge, and that hour or so of near-heart attacks followed by another hour and a half of walking to get back to their shitty little shack had been…

Sniper had said he was pretty sure he was out in the cold for something like five hours. By Scout’s estimate, it was somewhere closer to seven. That was a long, long time.

He couldn’t remember how one treated hypothermia. He knew you weren’t supposed to take a hot shower (as if that was even an option, they barely had electricity thanks to their shitty little generator, let alone heated running water), knew you weren’t supposed to drink alcohol. Knew that a blanket and dry clothes were supposed to help, and drinking something warm. Knew to be careful about fires—a glance at the fireplace just to one side of them—because it would be tempting to get too close and to get burned. But he didn’t remember what else he was supposed to do. He knew that Medic had flippantly rattled off the exact instructions, but he couldn’t remember them. He was too shaken.

“You almost died,” Sniper said suddenly, as if realizing it for the first time all over again.

“Why are you so hooked on that?” Scout demanded.

“Because—“ He cut himself off, going silent for a few seconds. “Because of a lot of reasons.”

Scout just leveled a look at him, still waiting for him to elaborate. Sniper tried to escape the glare by taking a drink of his cocoa, but it was still there when he looked up again.

“Because I guess I just didn’t expect it. Didn’t… plan for it,” he said, struggling for his words. The shivering was starting to subside, occasionally pausing, breaking itself into long bouts rather than a continuous affliction. “And… I would’ve been upset.”

“Yeah, I’d fuckin’ hope so,” Scout snorted.

“That’s not what I—“ Sniper just cut himself off again, glaring down into his mug for a few seconds to gather himself again. “I just mean that if I’d known something might’ve happened, I would’ve… or, or rather I _wouldn’t’ve_…”

Sniper couldn’t seem to look at him. “What?” Scout prompted after a second.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have said anything, a few days ago.”

He didn’t clarify. He didn’t need to. Scout knew exactly what he was talking about.

A few days prior. Scout had woken up first, done his patrols, and then when he got around to making breakfast, he’d made Sniper’s coffee as well, as he’d started doing at some point. Sniper had woken up shortly after, and had murmuringly called him a “bloody saint”, then a “bloody treasure”, then almost absentmindedly, he’d said “I love you”. And everything had stopped. And Scout stared, and Sniper stared, and neither of them spoke for a good few moments, shocked into silence. That had prompted something like a conversation, mostly just Scout asking questions, and Sniper stammering out answers and immediately backtracking, making Scout ask more questions again.

By the end of it, it was made clear that Sniper, apparently, had some kind of an interest in Scout. And Scout had only managed to respond that he did have an interest in Sniper as well, but he wasn’t sure. And then Sniper tried to get answers on that, answers that Scout simply didn’t have, and they reached a tense kind of stalemate that caused them to largely try and avoid talking to each other—a particularly challenging thing to do considering the total of two rooms in the shack and the oppressive cold outside of it.

This was the first time either of them had brought it up since.

“Why wouldn’t you have said anything?” Scout asked, voice quieter now.

“Because… I’d…” Sniper tried, choosing his words very carefully. “…I’d rather not have you die angry with me, or… have you die thinking I’m angry with _you.”_

“Angry? Since when am I angry with you?” Scout asked, befuddled.

“Since you—well since you started giving me the bloody silent treatment, is since when!” Sniper exclaimed.

“I thought you were mad at _me_, I was just giving you space!” Scout exclaimed right back.

Sniper looked frustrated, and buried it in the last of his cocoa, drinking with determination. His shivering was finally starting to fade. “Either way,” he said, tone back under control again. “I just… I finally told you, and then two days later, I almost lose you. It… I don’t know how I would’ve coped,” he admitted.

“Puts things in perspective,” Scout summarized, finally understanding what he meant. Sniper just nodded. Scout considered his own words, eyeing his hands, picking at the wrappings there. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a real answer,” he finally said.

“Any closer to having one?” Sniper asked, not much hope in his voice.

“Yeah. And it’s… it’s yeah.” He kept his eyes on his hands. “To whatever you were thinking of doing.”

Sniper looked at him for a few seconds. After those seconds, he moved aside his mug. “Well, first of all, get over here,” he grumbled, and Scout obliged, and the moment he was close enough, Sniper pulled him in to join him in the mess of blankets, embracing him, holding him close. His skin was starting to warm up. “Second of all, never scare me like that again.”

“You’ve got it,” Scout agreed, relaxing into Sniper’s hold. “But only if you don’t, neither.”

“Third of all, kiss me,” Sniper asked, less confidently than the previous two, as if not entirely convinced that Scout would listen to him, but he did. And then he did again, because despite being cold and chapped, Sniper’s lips were extremely pleasant against his own. Then he did again, and again, and again, right up until the point where Scout shifted and they unbalanced and almost broke Sniper’s mug.

Scout and Sniper both stayed away from cliffs.


	28. Sniper/Scout, "Kissing desperately."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["scoutrans asked: ALSO you don’t HAVE to... sniperscout 59
> 
> arin have you considered that i care u very much?]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #59: Kissing So Desperately That Their Whole Body Curves Into The Other Person’s.

The moment Sniper walked into the common room after getting back from his mission, he was practically tackled to the ground.

_”Snipes!”_ Scout cried, “You’re back!”

“Bloody—get off me!” was Sniper’s reply, startled, trying to push Scout off as he became immediately aware of several of their teammates staring and starting to laugh.

“No! I missed you!” Scout retorted, squeezing twice as hard until Sniper’s breath was squished right out of him.

“I was gone for _three days!”_ he protested anyways, voice a wheeze, now focusing more on keeping their balance. “Well within Respawn range! I wasn’t even in any danger!”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t _miss you_, you asshole,” Scout pouted, only holding onto him for another second or two before he finally took back his own weight and stepped away enough to look him over, hands still on his shoulders. “Seriously, it felt like you were gone _forever.”_

“Three days. Only two nights, even,” Sniper reminded him, walking past to go into the kitchen.

“A billion years,” Scout muttered.

The next time he went on a mission, it was for three days again, and Scout complained just as much _before_ he left as he did after he got back. The one following was only for two, and earned slightly less bemoaning, but the one after that, Sniper dreaded Scout’s reaction so much that he didn’t even tell him about it until about two hours before he left.

When he got back from it, a full week and a half later, you would’ve thought he was a private coming back from war like at the end of one of Pyro’s romance movies. He at least could give Scout a concrete time for when exactly he would be back, calling to the base from the airport, if only to keep from there being yet another scene in front of the entire team.

The second he stomped up the steps and in through the door of his camper, Scout was on him.

He didn’t even _say_ anything first, no hello, no “how was your mission”, no greeting at all, just a pair of hands cupping his face and a mouth against his own. Admittedly, Sniper found it much harder to protest such treatment now that they were mostly out of sight of the rest of the base and had some modicum of privacy.

He kissed Scout for a few moments, the hand not holding his bag wrapping around his waist to gather him close. After a few moments he tried to pull away to speak, but Scout chased him, kissing him again, and when he tried to pull away again another few moments later.

He ended up having to physically push Scout back to get some air, at which point Scout was a bit red in the face, just as out of breath as he was. “At least let me put my bag down and get my jacket off,” he chided, not without an amount of fondness, running a hand up through Scout’s hair, the runner’s hat having fallen off somewhere during that second kiss, apparently having gotten in his way.

Scout’s reply was to seize the bag from Sniper’s hand and toss it behind him into the camper, hands then reaching to shove Sniper’s vest down off his shoulders, and he promptly kissed Sniper again, one hand migrating to the back of his neck this time to yank him down.

Sniper couldn’t exactly argue with that, and found himself unexpectedly charmed by Scout’s unfettered enthusiasm and mild desperation, putting both arms to good use by wrapping them around Scout’s back, shifting his stance slightly to pull him in that much closer. There was contact between their chests, Scout’s thigh bumping against his own as he was practically dipped, needing to arch to accommodate the way Sniper took control of the kiss fully and completely, making his knees go weak.

When Sniper finally pulled back, Scout’s lips were red, his eyes heavy, looking all the more breathless and dazed thanks to the way his hair had gotten all out of order at some point. His pulse was quick in his chest, Sniper could feel it when they were pressed this close, and it made him grin.

“Unpacking can wait,” Sniper decided aloud. “How’s about we go inside and I show you how much I missed you?”

It made Scout smile and flush, the sudden confirmation that Sniper had been pained by their distance too, and he managed a nod before Sniper’s metaphorical attempt to sweep him off his feet became literal, the Australian lifting him bodily and carrying him back across the threshold, kicking the door closed behind him and leaving Scout’s hat in the dust and sand.


	29. Demo/Soldier, "War's end."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: can i request kiss number 9 with demoman and soldier? its fitting bc they literally had a WAR! but its over now right"
> 
> (spongebob narrator voice) ah, yes. the original crossfaction romance. (warnings for nothing)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #9: “War’s End” kiss.

“TAVISH!”

“JANE!”

The speed they collided at, there right at the dead center of the control point, was such that they were both sent careening to the ground, rolling over a few times until they finally collided with a wooden barrier, somehow managing to cling to each other through the chaos and the dust. When Demo sat up and peered down at Soldier, his eye was brighter than Soldier had maybe ever seen it, his grin wide and giddy.

“You got the news too, then?” he demanded, about to bubble over and burst any moment like one of his little chemistry experiments.

“Yes! We are all honorably discharged until the next time of conflict!” Soldier crowed, helmet knocked back enough for Demo to see his thrill paralleled. “I planned on going and making a purple heart! But first I wanted to tell you! We did it, private! We won!”

“Sir yes _feckin’_ sir we did!” Demo agreed, laughing loud and unashamed, scooping Soldier up to hold him close. “Lordy, I never thought I’d see the day, let alone before either of us got grey hairs, aye lad?”

“I have several follow-up questions!” Soldier declared. “Such as, one: do I get to keep my helmet? Two: do I get to keep my shovel?”

“Don’t see why the hell not,” Demo shrugged, pulling back and moving a hand up to tilt the helmet in question back into place cheerfully, which Soldier grinned wider at. “Didn’t get asked for ‘em back, did we?”

“Three: do I get to keep Lieutenant Bites?”

“Lad, the raccoons never belonged to anyone to start with, reckon they won’t be missed,” he assured.

“Four: what now?”

Demo frowned after a moment. “What do you mean, what now?” he asked, a little confused.

He was familiar with the fact that Soldier’s moods often changed on a dime, switching up almost too quick to keep up with at times. Somewhere between one moment and the next, he’d shifted from overjoyed to concerned. He hummed for a second as he thought over his next words. “If we are not at war with each other, how will we see each other?” he asked, clearly confused.

“If we don’t have to fight, we can see each other all we want,” Demo said, keeping his tone light.

“Where? I have been told that I have an hour to pack up and leave the base before it and anything inside are destroyed,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am pretty sure that includes the dumpsters. I have no back up plan.”

Demo frowned. “Well, where’d you live before that?” he asked.

“I lived with Merasmus! He was a terrible roommate. He kept trying to kill me. And he never washed his dishes,” Soldier said, expression flattening at the memory.

“Before _that_,” Demo clarified.

Soldier was silent, jaw set in a way that very much implied he would_ continue _to be silent for an extended period of time.

“Just, whereabouts did you come from?” Demo clarified further.

“Midwest,” he said shortly.

“It—what _state_, Janey dear?”

“Ohio. I am not going back to Ohio,” Soldier said firmly, and Demo was a little startled by the amount of ferocity in his tone, more than he generally used with Demo when they were off the job.

“Alright,” Demo said gently, squeezing his shoulder in a soothing motion and deciding it was probably a good idea to drop the topic altogether, “alright. Well, I’d need to talk to the old mum, but I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t much like the raccoons, or… your disposition in general,” he said, trying his best to word it politely.

“There are no allies for the raccoons of Company B,” Soldier said grimly.

“Right. So since living back with her isn’t exactly an option… we could really live anywhere,” Demo decided, shrugging. “Anywhere you’d like.”

“I would like to live in the United States of America!” Soldier declared.

“Fair enough. Contiguous?”

“Yes,” Soldier confirmed.

“Inland or coastal?”

He thought about it for a moment. “We must be prepared for assault by sea! So coastal.”

“East or West?”

“I do not care! As long as we do not live in California. I do not like the people in California.”

“Hippies?” Demo asked, grinning, already knowing the answer.

“Of course!”

“We’ll try East Coast, then. Hey, maybe New York, that’s where the Statue of Liberty is, aye?” Demo asked, elbowing Soldier. “Or maybe we’ll just go on a trip there to see it rather than staying long, that’s a bit close to Massachusetts, and lord knows Scout will tan my hide if I live that close and never pop in for a visit, aye? Maybe just go live south. How about Florida? Awful peaceful in parts of Florida.”

“Affirmative! As long as you and I also live close together,” Soldier said, very serious about his stipulation.

“How’s about we live in the same house?” Demo proposed, smile going a little sheepish as he realized what a question he’d just jumped Soldier with.

“Hmm,” Soldier hummed, considering the question carefully. “Do you promise to wash the dishes?”

“Absolutely,” Demo confirmed.

“And to not try and kill me with magic?”

“Only if we have a safeword,” Demo said, doing the elaborate head tilt he needed to do to wink without people getting confused.

Soldier laughed, loud and unashamed, and Demo couldn’t help his own chuckle rising up in reply. “Then you have a deal, private! Do you promise we can still fight sometimes?”

“Only for fun, and only as a joke,” Demo said, a little more serious all of a sudden. “And no weapons allowed. Besides that, we won’t have to. We don’t have to fight anymore, Jane. Never again.”

Soldier looked up at him, a slack to his jaw that suggested he was staring in wonder, the prospect clearly completely new to him. After a moment, he broke out into a grin, searching hard for what to say next. “Does that mean I get to kiss you now?” he asked, clearly excited.

Demo laughed. “As often as you want,” he declared, and Soldier didn’t waste a single second, leaning in to seal the deal, eager to sign on to enlist in whatever the rest of their lives would be. As long as it was him and Tavish.


	30. Heavy/Medic, "I've missed you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["deliciousboondollarsandwich asked: If you're still doing it.... 7 with heavymedic Pleamse"
> 
> hello and welcome to the cheesiest shit i have ever written in my life probably. (no warnings)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #7: “I’ve missed you” kiss.

“Doktor!”

Medic did the favor of moving with Heavy’s momentum as he was lifted and spun in an embrace, chuckling and squeezing right back, until he was lowered back to the floor again and delivered a noisy kiss to either cheek. “Hello, _mein Schatz_,” he laughed, smiling up at the giant of a man. “How was your holiday?”

“Sisters are doing well, Bronislava finally was impatient and cut hair off again, Yanna asks many questions about attractive men I work with,” Heavy said, and squeezed Medic on the shoulders pointedly, making him laugh. “How is Doktor?”

“Better now,” he said simply, rising onto his toes to give Heavy a brief kiss, the man bending down to allow and prolong it. “And I am _very_ happy to say that I am ready with your present!”

He led Heavy down towards the infirmary, which only had Heavy worried for a few seconds before he reminded himself that first of all, Medic’s office and room were also down this way, and second, they’d had a conversation about gift-giving and he’d already made Medic promise that his gift could _not_ be related to his various experiments, saying that he didn’t want Medic to do _any_ work over the holidays until they were officially back at work, to instead use this break to relax for once.

The door was pushed open, and it became clear with the smell of cleaning products and the dustless nature of the infirmary that Medic hadn’t exactly followed that to the letter, but he would forgive him—it wasn’t in Medic’s style to do something like let his infirmary remain dusty when he had even the smallest amount of free time. The doves in the rafters made a few sounds at them as they passed through towards Medic’s little office, and Heavy almost imagined it being their way of saying _”Merry Christmas, welcome home!”_

Once they reached the office, Medic’s fingers fumbled on the lock of one of the large bottommost drawers of his desk, finally managing to get it open and taking a breath before moving to pull from it a large box, carefully wrapped in silver paper with a bright white ribbon. He put it on the desk, looking up at Heavy a little nervously. “Would you rather open it _now_, or…” he trailed, and Heavy smiled, bemused by the uncharacteristic hesitance that had suddenly overtaken Medic.

“Would like this very much,” Heavy said, and Medic nodded, pushing the box towards him. He took it, taking care as he first undid the ribbon and allowed it to fall away, then with carefully pulling the lid free. He was met with the sight of tissue paper, also white, which he pushed aside to pick up—

He looked up at Medic with wide eyes, and found the man searching his expression. A weak smile. “I am aware that—“ he started to say, and cut himself off cold as Heavy lifted the large book free of the last of the tissue paper, looking over it with no small amount of reverence.

“Doktor, where do you get this book?” he asked, voice very small. “Is not in print anymore.”

Medic’s smile relaxed only a little in his periphery. “Correct. It is not. I searched a great number of bookstores throughout Germany, and finally found one in Berlin that took particular pride in good quality copies of very old books.” He swallowed hard. “So that _is_ the correct edition?”

Heavy carefully flipped open the book, eyes locking not on the more technical information, but instead reading through the foreword, finding every single word to be exactly how he remembered it. “It is,” he confirmed, voice even smaller now.

It was something he’d told Medic about once, _maybe_ twice total. How his love of reading, of literature, of poetry and philosophy and everything else under the sun, had all derived from a big, beautiful book his father would read to him as a child. It was one of the few possessions they had that Heavy was truly fond of, a beautiful leather-like cover and binding with raised bands and pages gilded in a gold that wouldn’t dim, no matter how many years passed. He remembered sitting before his father and listening to his low, gravelly tone reading from the book, always starting at the foreword and then reading from whatever page Misha picked after that. And he was enthralled by the rhythm, the care with which every word had been written, and the ease with which his father would read them, having gone through the book more times than he could count even before he started reading it aloud to his son. It was the one material possession besides their wedding china that his mother had wept for when they were captured and deported following his father’s death.

It was beyond rare, had probably stopped printing long before Heavy was born, and he could remember every detail of it down to the number of pages and on which page each chapter started.

“You find this for Heavy? You search through all of Germany for Russian book for Heavy from very young?” Heavy asked, his already shaky grasp of English escaping him further as he was overcome with emotion.

“Yes.” Medic swallowed hard, looking down at his own gloves where he’d clasped his hands together. “Because… you already know that I love you very much, Misha.”

“I also love you, Doktor,” Heavy said, voice choked. He stroked his hand gently over the cover, brighter than he’d remembered it even in the shiniest of rose-tinted memories, before setting it down and bringing Medic into an embrace, having to work very hard to not crush him as so many feelings rushed through his ears and threatened to spill through his eyes. “Thank you. Heavy… cannot remember words. You have done great thing. Greatest thing.”

Medic didn’t reply verbally, just squeezing him back harder for a few moments.

They finally pulled away, and Heavy took a deep breath, mopping at his eyes and cheeks with the back of one hand. “Look what Doktor has done, has made Heavy cry like big baby,” he chided, and Medic laughed, taking a handkerchief from his breast pocket and reaching to stroke across Heavy’s stubbly cheek with his thumb to gather the tears he had missed.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said simply, so much more there behind his words that luckily did not need translated, putting his kerchief back away. “We can… take a few minutes before you give your gift, if you would like—“

Heavy shook his head, reminded all at once again about his own gift, weighty in his pocket. “I have gift here,” he said, patting at that pocket, thinking over his next words carefully. “But we must go to table before Heavy gives it.”

Medic inclined his head, but ultimately gave in and started leading the way back out into the infirmary.

Once at the operating table, Heavy surprised him by picking him up and sitting him at the end of it, moving to pull off his gloves only to press a kiss into the palm of either hand. Medic flushed at the attention, still not entirely used to the softer, more romantic parts of being in a relationship.

“Heavy has been… practicing what words to use, but… has been having difficult time with translation,” he settled in, eyes locked on his hands for now. “Plan was to ask for help from Spy, he knows Russian very well, but has not come back yet and there was not time…”

He stammered off, trying to get back on track. He took a deep breath, met Medic’s confused gaze.

“So Heavy will just ask in Russian, and Spy translates later if… if Doktor would like,” he said, and pressed a hand to his own chest for a moment, taking one last deep breath before he started in.

It was occasionally frustrating to Heavy that several of the Americans and English-speakers on his team thought he was unintelligent due to how poor his skills with the language were. In Russian, his mother tongue, his was a poet, a philosopher. There were times when even Spy had a difficult time keeping up with him and would ask him to slow down, and he’d been among the top of his class when he was getting his degree in literature, a focus on poetry. It frustrated him that he should have such a hard time communicating with his team, especially with his Doktor—the love of his life. So for the moment, he had to be content with speaking his poetry in his own language, to be eventually translated into English—or maybe directly into German, if Spy was willing to help that far—for him to understand.

In previous attempts at practicing what he meant to say, either in front of a mirror or in front of his youngest sister Bronislava, who had cried nearly every time, it had taken roughly ten minutes to get through all of what he wanted to say. This time, it was totaling up towards something closer to fifteen, slowed down as he indulged himself in kissing Medic’s hands between certain sentences. He half expected Medic to stop him, to tell him to get on with it, to get bored. But instead, Medic watched and listened to him attentively, even as he clearly didn’t understand more than the occasional word or phrase. There was an amount of confusion there behind his eyes as it became clear that Heavy was speaking about him, but he never interrupted, never looked away but for briefly when Archimedes landed lightly upon his shoulder, just listening quietly right up through to the very end, smiling when Heavy laughed a bit and frowning when Heavy grew choked up.

Finally, they were at the very end, and Heavy needed to swallow hard for the last few sentences. It was with his voice thick and his eyes wet that he gently got down on one knee and pulled his gift from his pocket, presenting the box there before Medic. _”So, my love, the light of my life, the man who saved my life and saves it every day each time he looks at me, who kills me and sends me to heaven with every kiss,”_ he said in Russian, and opened the box. _”Will you marry me?”_

Medic had his hands clasped over his mouth, and even the doves had gone silent up above, Archimedes staring at Heavy with one beady black eye.

Medic began a breathed phrase twice in German before finally finding it. “We cannot be legally married,” he whispered.

“Is not about legal marriage,” Heavy assured, voice choked, not getting up from his place on one knee even as it began to ache, not lowering his hands even as they began to tremble. “Is about Heavy getting to promise forever.”

Medic’s eyes were rapidly welling with tears, and he moved to take his glasses off, sniffling, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve for a moment before he put them back on again.

“So?” Heavy prompted, voice weak.

“Yes, of course, yes, a million times _yes!”_ Medic cried impatiently, moving forward to tackle Heavy in a passionate kiss, with enough force to nearly send even Heavy off balance to the ground. When he pulled away, Medic wiped at his eyes again, choking on a happy sob, taking the ring with more care than he’d even handled Heavy’s literal heart with, slipping it onto his hand with trembling fingers. “It is beautiful,” he managed, looking up at Heavy.

“Was grandfather’s, one of few things we could save,” Heavy explained, taking Medic’s hand to kiss at where the ring now sat. “Talked to sisters, to mother. All would like to meet you next time there is long holiday. Zhanna promised not to flirt with you,” he added with a wink.

Medic barked a laugh, still overwhelmed beyond words, choking back further sobs as he buried his face into Heavy’s shoulder. “I love you,” was all he managed to find the words for, weak into his pulse point and punctuated with a series of kisses.

“I love you too. Forever,” Heavy said. And he did.


	31. Demo/Engineer, "Kissing desperately."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 59 with demo/engie per favor💜"
> 
> i don’t even know what the Cute Funny Ship Name is for these two but i hope i did well?? (warning for engie being embarrassed about his body type)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #59: Kissing So Desperately That Their Whole Body Curves Into The Other Person’s.

“Darlin’, care to spare an eye?”

Demo looked up from his own project—the last touches on some particularly finnicky wiring for a new potentially Spy-proof door panel—as Engie slid over a pad of grid paper to him. It was a page full of equations in the Engineer’s neat, blocky text. “I know I say it every time I see it, but I’d give my other eye for handwriting like this,” Demo joked, sliding the pad closer and starting to look over it critically. He squinted at it after a second. “Even if you do use the bloody imperial system still for some damn reason.”

“Just what I’m used to,” Engie shrugged, sitting back and rolling his shoulders to work out the stiffness that came from hunching over a workbench for stretches of time.

Demo continued his way down the page, eye darting back and forth quickly over it before stalling for a few seconds near the bottom. “Twelve inches in a foot?” he asked for confirmation, glancing back up at Engie.

“Yup.”

“Made a mistake right here at the end, Toymaker, wrote the equation right but the answer’s by eleven, not by twelve.”

“Damn,” Engie sighed, taking the pad back and starting to erase. “Thanks, I would’ve missed that for sure.”

“Half the reason I’m here,” Demo returned easily, moving back to his own project. “Good on you for wanting to show your work, at least, makes checkin’ it a damn sight easier.”

“I noticed that, that you never write down anything,” Engie said, looking up at the way Demo worked without any kind of guide or diagram.

“Don’t need it. Keeping around paper’s a fire hazard in my line’a work, and takes up time besides. Nah laddie, all the diagrams I need are right up here.” He tapped at his own temple. “Only things I have hanging up in my workshop are a periodic table and a fire extinguisher.”

“You don’t have that memorized?” Engie asked, speaking even as he redid the math on the paper in front of him.

“I do, but just the order. Could probably copy it down if I had to, but, eh. Saves time to have a cheat in front of me.”

Engie looked up at Demo appraisingly. “I really do think it would be worth your time to take an IQ test,” he said, as he’d said a few times before. “Certified genius looks awful good on a job application.”

“So does the last name DeGroot, darl, I can already get a job damn near anywhere I bloody well want, even with an eye knocked out and a half-dead liver,” he laughed. He flicked a switch and snapped shut the box, holding it closed while he pressed a few buttons, hearing them beep and watching the lights flicker back at him accordingly. “Should be all set with this.”

Engie put aside his pencil and stood up, moving to pick up a tray of tools and screws. “Alright, might as well install it now,” he said.

Demo nodded, stretching and grinning as there were a few answering pops in his back. “Lead the way, lad,” he said cheerfully.

He did so, making sure the other door was unlocked before they let the main one close and lock behind them. The instillation of the new panel was a quick affair, especially with Demo’s expert hands, and it was only half an hour before Engie was screwing it in place and testing it out. The door clicked open, and they grinned at each other, satisfied.

“Now, I’d hate to tell you how to do your job,” Demo started.

“But?” Engie prompted.

“But you know how he keeps breaking in here, right?”

Engie shook his head, brows furrowing above his goggles.

“Well, he can just unscrew these,” he said, pointing at the screws holding the box closed and to the wall. “Then pull the thing open, tinker with it how he pleases. You need something more secure than screws.”

Engie blinked, surprised. He hadn’t thought of that. “What, so… bolts?”

“Nah. Hand me that,” he said, and took the power drill from Engie. “Here’s what you do, some foolproof security solutions.”

He put the drill back against the screws and ran it, Engie immediately recoiling at the horrible noise as Demo stripped the screw, grinding the grooves away into nothing.

“Hell or high water, not a damn thing you can do about a stripped screw,” he said two screws in, and Engie had to admit that he had a point, even as he mourned the damage that doing so would do to his power drill.

“Might need to replace parts of that now,” he complained.

“Solly will break it within the weak, darl,” Demo pointed out, voice raised over the sound of the drill. “Good as scrap anyways.”

He finished off his little job, and they went back into the workshop for Demo to collect his wiring kit and for Engie to get back to his own math. “Care to stick around a while longer?” Engie invited, a little hope in his voice, pushing his goggles up for a moment.

“Ach, how am I supposed to say no to a face like that?” Demo teased, taking a seat again and watching as Engie kept writing. He rolled his eye after a second. “You and your damn imperial system nonsense, yards this, pounds that—“

“Well, I’m more pounds than yards anyways,” Engie joked, grinning up at Demo in a way that was vaguely self-deprecating.

When he did, he found that Demo was giving him A Look. “We gonna need to have another talk, lad?” he asked, voice nearly devoid of humor.

Engie huffed, looking back at his work, pulling his goggles back down. “Never needed to have one in the first place,” he grumbled back.

“I disagree,” Demo said a little sharply. “Love, I don’t know how many times I need to say it, but there’s nothing wrong with the way you look.”

“There just ain’t anything right with it, neither,” Engie muttered, starting to flush.

“You’re an attractive and intelligent man, Dell Conagher, and I’m lucky that I get to date you,” Demo said firmly.

“I’m half as wide as I am tall and balding, Tavish DeGroot,” Engie replied impatiently.

“Doesn’t very well damn matter, because I think you’re a feckin’ stud for it,” Demo snapped. “What’s weight got to do with anything in practicality, love?”

“It doesn’t bother you that you can’t lift me up to hug me?” Engie pointed out.

Demo stood up abruptly. “That’s a bloody challenge if I ever heard one, Conagher, pencil down and on your feet.”

Engie immediately began to protest. “You’ll hurt yourself trying, darlin’, don’t you dare,” he said quickly as Demo rounded the table.

“Didn’t nary ask a question, Conagher, I said _on your feet_,” Demo said, twice as demandingly, and Engie hesitantly obliged.

And to his surprise, Demo first pulled his goggles off from over his head, then put them and his hardhat on the desk next to them. Then, in one smooth motion, he hefted Engie under both arms and lifted him into the air, kissing him soundly on the mouth once they were eye-to-eyes.

Admittedly, the sudden departure from the ground startled him, made him lean forward, clutching at Demo’s shoulders with both hands as if to catch himself, surprised at the way the difference in height seemed to dramatically change the feeling of their chests pressing together. And for a moment, he felt less embarrassed by the feeling of Demo’s firm chest and stomach against his own softer one, instead left dizzy and a little giddy at the ease with which a Demo had lifted him off the ground, and idly enjoying the way Demo’s stubble felt against his face.

They broke apart with a _smack_, a sound similar to a jar opening, and Demo smirked at him for a second, joy glittering in his eye for a moment until he lowered Engie back to stand firmly on both feet.

“Any further questions, Toymaker?” he asked, full of a cheeky confidence, and Engie found himself struck dumb by it, simply shaking his head for a second until his brain stopped short-circuiting and words came back to him.

“Not at all, you were right,” he replied. “You were right.”


	32. Pyro/Scout, "First kiss."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: if ur still taking them... 28 pyroscout 🥺"
> 
> pyro tf2 said trans rights and scout tf2 said disaster bi rights and the team said queer rights and that’s what’s up, sis. (warning for discussion of past transphobia and other queer issues)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #28: First kiss.

It wasn’t that Scout was all that _surprised_ to have Pyro end up as basically his best friend. He’d secretly been hoping that he’d get to be friends with a few of his coworkers when he’d taken the job, and Pyro was pretty close to him in age and shared a few of the same interests as him so it wasn’t unreasonable to expect to get along. It was just…

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it was a little bit of an honor.

They hung out in plenty of places—watching TV or playing card games in the common room, hopping into a car and heading into town to watch the latest movie once or twice (or like eight times if they both really liked it), sometimes out back to start a bonfire or something for the hell of it.

But Pyro’s room tended to be his favorite hangout location of theirs, because that was the only place where they were okay with taking off their mask and suit.

Pyro had tried very hard not to make a big deal out of it the first time they’d unmasked in front of Scout. He’d been confused about what they were doing unclasping the bottom of it, since they didn’t have any food with them or anything and that was the only reason they usually did that—to sneak bites of food beneath. But then they shucked the whole thing up and over their head, shaking their head to re-orient themselves, sending their hair—he’d never thought about what Pyro’s hair had to be like before, how had he never thought of that?—bouncing around their face loosely, half-flattened but clearly very naturally curly. Pyro had to take a moment to fish something else out of their mask, a cap of some kind, probably to hold their hair down, and they clearly were trying very hard to avoid eye contact, nervous.

Scout, for once, was at a loss for words, mouth flapping in a way that was probably pretty similar to a fish for something like thirty seconds straight.

“Hey,” he finally managed, pointing at his own face where assorted freckles dotted his cheeks. “We match.”

Pyro glanced up at him, a little startled, then barked a laugh, and it sounded so much better when it wasn’t muffled. They hesitated a few more moments before they pulled off their gloves as well and set all of the newly-shed pieces of uniform down on their cluttered desk, fidgeting severely. “I guess so,” Pyro confirmed, and Scout had never noticed before that they had a very slight accent, too light for him to pick out what it had to be. “I’d never, I couldn’t tell before. With the…”

They pantomimed something up near their eyes, words stalling on them. It took Scout a few seconds to get what they meant. “With the mask?” he asked for confirmation. They nodded. “Oh. Huh. So it’s kinda like your first time seeing me too, huh?”

Pyro laughed. “I guess so,” they repeated, scratching at their stubble self-consciously, or maybe just because they finally could, and then Scout made an effort to both just move on with the rest of what all they were planning on doing when they hung out and also with not staring too much.

The jump to stripping off their suit as far as the tank top and thick-but-tight sweatpants they wore underneath was done a few weeks later when Scout had demonstrated that he wasn’t planning on saying anything, and he was only a little surprised by the plethora of burn marks and scars dotting their skin. He’d noticed an awful lot of scars all over Pyro, and he figured it was probably from when Pyro had been working as a mercenary before Mann Co., something he was aware had happened but hadn’t been able to coax Pyro into talking about. But it was nothing heinous, nothing that he figured warranted a full-body suit to hide it.

He tried to work out how exactly to ask Pyro why they wore the suit without being weird or rude. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

“I appreciate it, you know,” Pyro said one day unprompted, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. They were sat a foot or so apart on Pyro’s bed and drawing, Scout sketching out a dramatic rendition of a particularly funny pose he’d seen the enemy Sniper land in when he died and Pyro apparently drawing yet another unrealistically bright technicolor landscape.

“What?” Scout asked, glancing over at them, more obviously than he’d been occasionally doing the whole time they’d been drawing together. They tended to do this really adorable thing where they stuck their tongue out a little bit when they were concentrating, and Scout had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling every time he saw it.

“That you don’t…” They hesitated. “…I dunno. That you don’t try and guess, now that you’ve seen me.”

Scout tilted his head. “Huh?”

Pyro’s gaze flickered to him and back down again almost too quickly to see. “You keep… not calling me anything,” they said. “Except for dude sometimes, but, you call everyone that anyways. That you still try and use “pal” or “buddy” instead of “man” or “lady” or whatever.”

Scout blinked.

Admittedly, there had been a good month or two right after he joined the team where he didn’t know how to refer to Pyro, and had just gone with using “he”, figuring it would be the less offensive assumption for someone in a mercenary career. Then at some point Engie finally sat him down and explained things to him, and after about a week of stumbling he finally got in the practice of using “they” and other words that weren’t particularly for a guy or girl. He couldn’t say that he really _got_ it in a lot of ways, but he’d worked hard to learn the rules on how to be polite, because he figured he owed them that at the very minimum, if nothing else.

“What do you mean?” he asked after a second.

Pyro turned the marker in their hand over and over again. “Back before I started wearing the suit,” they started to explain, gesturing loosely at the suit in question, laid down on the chair at their desk like a deflated second Pyro (and admittedly sometimes scaring the shit out of Scout when he forgot it was there and noticed it in his periphery). “I would try and tell people I worked with that I wasn’t a guy or a girl, and they’d say sure, whatever, who cares, as long as you can kill people. But they’d look at me and start referring to me as a guy anyways. Sometimes a girl, but not usually. And only as… as neither, or both, or whatever, when I corrected them and maybe for a little while after.” They scratched at their stubble again. It was getting longer, and they’d probably shave pretty soon, if Scout knew them. “And it’s just… I always wondered what it was. I’d try and go clean-shaven all the time, wax, I wore makeup once or twice even to try and balance it out, but all that did was make them refer to me as a girl more, or look at me weird. I couldn’t seem to find the middle. So eventually I just put on the suit so nobody would… get hints anymore.”

Scout frowned, but didn’t know exactly what to say. “That’s the fuckin’ worst,” he decided on.

“I know, right?!” Pyro gushed, as if the dam had broken and they were finally allowed to feel mad about it. They sighed hard, pushing their hair out of their eyes, even if they just bounced right back into place a moment later. “They always respected me _professionally_, but what’s it take for a person to get called the right name, y’know!? Did they want me to wear a stupid t-shirt with instructions on it!?” Another sigh, then they looked up at Scout with those deep brown eyes of theirs, the ones that flooded Scout with an inexplicable sense of comfort. “And I guess I just wanted to say thanks. For not… I dunno. Being weird.”

Scout nodded, hesitated. “So I’ve been doin’ that right?” he asked suddenly, unable to stop himself.

Pyro smiled at him warmly. “You’ve been doing great, probably the best job anyone’s ever done,” they assured, and Scout knew his own smile was probably goofy and stupid looking, but he couldn’t bite it back.

“Thanks,” he said, having to look away, and Pyro laughed.

“And, I dunno. There was also this weird thing where I tried to date for a while and people kept not taking me seriously, then one day someone finally gave me a shot but got all weird and just straight up asked me what _equipment_ I had on the _second date_ and it was the worst.”

“I mean, none’a their fuckin’ business is what unless they’re asking if they should pack a condom,” Scout scoffed.

“Right!? It just sucked because most people would say “oh, I’m just into girls” or try and like, swing it as if I’m a guy and therefore it was totally cool, and only twice did I find someone who would go for whoever and one got weird about it and the other one is the person I took on two dates. Only person who ever gave me any real respect about it could only go on one date with me, and she was only cool because she kind of had some special circumstances going on too, then she had a contract abroad and we had to cut things off. And I just—I dunno. I wish people who went either way would… I dunno.”

“Hey, I fit that bill, and I’d totally date you,” Scout said, and then realized what he’d just said out loud.

Pyro was staring at him openly, mouth a little agape. They tried to start talking twice without success before finally managing it on the third attempt. “You’re bisexual?” they asked, a little surprised.

Scout immediately began backtracking. “I mean, I, I dunno,” he said quickly, looking away, face on fire, “I, it isn’t like I’ve ever really even gotten to date any, anyone but a couple girls and stuff, and, I, thinking and doing are kinda two different things, and y’know, labels and, and…”

They raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, yeah, I think I’m bi,” he finally admitted. “But you can’t fuckin’ tell anyone, got it? The guys already get all up in my grill about callin’ me gay all the time and, and Medic asking when the coming out party is and, and Sniper going all “what’s with the pride meeting?” and shit like that, I just, I don’t need any more of that fuckin’ nonsense, okay?”

“You know half of them do those jokes because they’re not straight either, right?” Pyro asked flatly.

Scout blinked. “The Doc and Snipes are gay?” he asked, surprised.

Pyro gave him a look.

“…Okay, I guess that’s, that tracks,” he admitted. “But—how many, who all’s…?”

“Far as I know, just Medic, Sniper, Heavy, and Spy, and those last two are also bi or something like that, and I think Demo doesn’t really swing any way,” Pyro said. “You really didn’t know? I thought they were pretty out about it.”

“Nobody tells me anything!” Scout said defensively.

“That’s fair. But… I dunno, I’m obviously not gonna go out and break out the news with confetti and streamers for you, but… I think they wouldn’t really care,” Pyro shrugged. “If anything they’d just try and wingman for you more.”

Scout thought about that for a while. “Man, what are the odds that we’d get a goddamn queer collective out in the middle of a fuckin’ desert?” he asked suddenly.

“Have you maybe considered that the people who’d go out into a desert away from civilization might be queer people trying to be more themselves where they can’t get as much backlash?” Pyro suggested.

“…Shit. That makes a lot of sense actually,” he admitted.

Quiet for a few seconds. “Let’s circle back around to that part where you said you’d totally go for someone like me,” Pyro said suddenly.

Scout pulled his hat down over his face, feeling it go red again. “Shut the fuck up, dude,” he protested, annoyed at how whiny it came out. “I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”

“Do you think about making out with me a _lot?”_ Pyro asked, tone clearly teasing now, and Scout groaned.

“Oh my god, shut up,” he muttered. “I come out to you and you just start fuckin’ bullying me? That’s the play?”

“Duh,” Pyro laughed, and pinched his cheek, making him flush further as he batted their hand away.

“I’m just sayin’ that you’re good-looking and funny and anyone would be lucky to date you, okay?” Scout finally said, trying not to let more embarrassment flood through his voice.

That got Pyro to grin sheepishly, picking up their drawing again. “You’re sweet,” was all they managed to reply with, quieter now.

“The sweetest guy on the planet,” Scout agreed, picking up his own drawing as well, and Pyro elbowed him in the ribs, making him squawk.

He ended up coming out to Engie offhandedly during their lunch break about a week later, and he only even managed it because Pyro was sitting and eating next to him, their knee pressing into his own and bringing him enough comfort to broach the topic. Engie was immediately supportive, and ended the conversation with a pat on his shoulder and by saying he was proud of him for having to courage to say something.

That gave Scout a burst of confidence, and he ended up dragging Pyro around for the rest of the day as he came out to other teammates as well, first Demo and Soldier right after battle (Soldier needed an additional few moments of explanation but overall they were both glad to hear the news), then Medic and Heavy where they were sitting playing chess in the common room (once Heavy got past the language barrier, he offered Scout a solemn high-five in solidarity, which he accepted gratefully). Sniper was reserved for the next day, outside where he was setting up the grill to take his turn making the team dinner (he was a little awkward for a moment, clearly a bit confused and not having expected anyone to come talk to him, but once he caught on to what Scout was saying he offered one of his rare smiles and a few supportive words). 

Oddly enough, Spy was the one that made him the most nervous for reasons he couldn’t pin down, maybe partially because he didn’t bring Pyro along, but he probably handled it the most easily, treating it as no big deal at all, simply pausing for a moment before giving a flippant “Alright. Was that all, _mon ami?”_ and shooing him back out of his smoking room shortly after.

“Look at you,” Pyro said appraisingly when he showed up to hang out in their room, clapping him on the shoulder, clearly noticing the fact that he was practically glowing.

“Didn’t even get beat up or shoved in a locker,” he said cheerfully.

Pyro looked at him for another second or two before they finally just swept him up in a hug, squeezing him almost too-tight in their excitement. “I’m so proud of you!” they exclaimed softly, and he returned the hug, burying his face in their hair when he became sure that he wouldn’t get in trouble for it, surprised and delighted by how very nice it smelled. Vanilla-y and a little coconut-y, warm like everything else about them.

It was only through the combination of circumstances—riding the nervous high from being newly-out for the first time in his life, and being all wrapped up in a hug with his best friend, and his nose being greeted by the smell of the _very_ appealing shampoo they apparently used—that he got the exact level of confidence to do what he did next. They pulled away from the hug finally to look up at him with that same proud smile, and he leaned down and kissed them square on the mouth.

It was three or four seconds before he pulled away again with a tiny, almost-inaudible little _smeck_. He smiled down at them, feeling the wildly spinning combination of euphoria and fear and excitement and apprehension and thrill and terror swirling around in his chest. Their lips were slightly parted, and they stared up at him with wonder. If he ever drew the moment, he would probably draw Pyro’s pupils in the shape of little hearts, the way they were looking at him just then.

“Oh,” they said breathlessly, and laughed a little. “So you _were_ serious when you said you’d go for someone like me, then?”

Scout laughed, couldn’t stifle it, rising up through his chest alongside his heart. “Yeah, duh,” he said, voice tinted a little higher than usual.

“Well shit, then get back down here,” Pyro said, and tugged on his shirt, and he readily obliged.


	33. Sniper/Scout, "Sad kiss."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["x-efflorescence-x asked: 22 speeding bullet. BREAK ME. (pls?)"
> 
> not quite Maximum Sad on this one but still real sappy-like. (no warnings)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[#22. Sad Kiss.]]

There was something there behind Scout’s eyes that made Sniper feel guilty, and he just couldn’t place exactly what.

They were at the train station. Most of Scout’s things were going to be going separate from him—he’d passed out some of them to other teammates, other things he’d returned to their employer, and what all he kept would be flying back to Boston or was packed into his two suitcases, sitting there next to the both of them, innocuous but heavy in more than one sense of the word.

The majority of the goodbyes had happened outside the base. Pyro was tearful, and Demo was a bit weepy as well. Engie held it together, told Scout to write. Heavy and Medic were entirely professional, wishing Scout a safe journey back home and congratulating him on the good work he’d done. Spy, the absolute snake, hadn’t shown up at all. Engie claimed that he’d been asked to pass along Spy’s goodbye. Sniper was fairly sure he was lying to make Scout feel better.

It was a good thing. Scout was all done, would get to go home and enjoy the rest of his life. He could take all the money he’d accumulated over the years—ten years, it had been ten whole years, almost a third of Scout’s life—and live comfortably. He’d probably get a job anyways, he’d said in the past when asked about it, when leaving seemed like some completely distant and impossible thing. He said he might teach little league, jokingly claimed that maybe he would get a job leading a troop in the Boy Scouts, wouldn’t that be funny? Or maybe he could be a P.E. teacher, or take up marathon running, or work at a gym. He still had a good decade or two left in him, more if he stayed in shape, and he really wanted to keep busy. Keep moving.

Sniper didn’t know which one he would pick. Didn’t know if it even mattered.

Scout looked at him. He looked at Scout.

Ten years. Scout hadn’t changed much in that time. Right up front during the first few months after they all started working together he’d had a bit of an attitude adjustment, going from a loud aggressive bonehead to something else when it became clear that the other mercs didn’t intend to eat him alive. It became clear that he was mostly acting out because he was scared, and the mercs all started working together as a better team, and once Scout realized they didn’t have it out for him, he mellowed out just a little. And a few more years down the line, when he had the secondary realization that they wouldn’t make fun of him or cut him loose the second he showed any signs of weakness, he mellowed even further, relaxing significantly. The majority of the time Sniper’d known him, Scout had simply been enthusiastic, earnest, maybe a little bit on the strange side—all of them were—but he was a legitimately fun and interesting individual to be around. He was sure that himself being a patient person contributed to some of that, Scout indeed being extremely talkative when they landed on a topic he knew a lot about, but overall he really did think Scout was just a sweet bloke.

Very sweet. Increasingly sweet.

They never did get around to telling the team.

And here they were, at the train station, and Scout was looking at him, and he was looking at Scout.

Distantly, a whistle.

“Don’t make me say it first,” Sniper said, voice even a little bit rougher than usual.

The excuse was that Sniper wasn’t busy and knew how to drive the Engineer’s stick-shift truck, and he needed to go out on a quick errand off-base anyways. That was the only reason he was the one who drove Scout to the train station, and alone. All he’d known for sure when he’d gone through all the work of getting it sorted was that he wanted every individual second with Scout that he could get, and couldn’t say his goodbyes in front of the others. He just couldn’t. He hadn’t even started yet, and he was right, his eyes already burned even besides the dust ever-present in the air.

“Heavy told me his contract is up in a couple of months,” Scout said. “Hardhat’s signed on for another year and a half, and Mumbles and the Doc are probably gonna stick around as long as they’ll still get money and a place to stay. I dunno what Spy’s deal is—who the hell does?—and Soldier says he’s around until the next call to action, so, he’s just hopin’ for World War III probably. Cyclops has only got five months left, but he said he’s probably gonna sign another one when it expires.”

Sniper nodded hesitantly. He hadn’t known any of that. He was sure it’d come up in conversation at some point long in the past, but he hadn’t kept track, hadn’t remembered. But Scout had.

He knew he’d probably brought up his own contract before.

Scout looked at him. He looked at Scout.

“Have your ticket?” Sniper asked quietly, throat tight.

“Yeah,” Scout confirmed, and pulled it out of his pocket to show him. He fumbled for a minute before he found the correct pocket, not used to regular-people clothes.

“Some food, wallet, all that?”

“Yeah,” Scout said, patted the strap of his backpack. “All good.”

“Umbrella?”

Scout managed a laugh. “Snipes, I’m gonna be on a train.”

“You never know, could be…” He swallowed to try to dislodge the lump in his throat. “…could be train weather.”

“Train weather?” Scout repeated, laughing even just a bit more.

“Weather on a train. Storms and the like. Could drizzle, and you’d need an… umbrella. For the train.”

He made it exactly three seconds into the silence following his joke before the first sob hit.

“Aw, Jesus, c’mon Snipes,” Scout exhaled, pulling him into a tight embrace in an instant. Sniper returned it, only half-mindful not to crush Scout, shoulders wracked with further sobs he couldn’t seem to stifle. “If you start cryin’ I’m gonna start cryin’, and then we’ll just—we’ll just be two guys cryin’ at the train station.”

“Well I can’t bloody well buggering help it, can I?” Sniper replied, voice very much higher than usual, burying his face into Scout’s shoulder, made softer by his jacket, trying to muffle his sobs.

Scout gave him a few gentle pats on the back, rocking the both of them back and forth in soothing motions. Sniper just held him tight, trying his damndest to memorize the feeling of Scout in his arms. The smell of his hair from the shower he’d had that morning, the cologne still stubbornly clinging to his shirt, the weight of him as he held on to Sniper, the sound of his voice humming through his ear when he spoke, sinking deep into his chest and curling up with a heaviness that registered as immense comfort. “I know. It’s okay. I know, Snipes.”

Ten minutes went by like that, he and Scout just holding on to each other while Sniper cried. And Scout got a little teary as well for a little bit, sniffly and voice going weepy as he continued murmuring comfort to him. But finally Sniper managed to pull himself together, taking the half-step back and dragging a sleeve over his face a few times, sure he looked like a mess.

“Better?” Scout asked, trying for a smile.

“No,” Sniper admitted, nose still feeling a bit stuffy. “I’m just… I’m going to miss you so bloody much.”

“I’m not dying, Snipes,” Scout chided, smile just a touch wider.

“I know that,” he said, and sniffled again.

Scout looked him over, and seemed to decide something. He reached into his jacket. “Gimme your arm,” he instructed.

Sniper did, and Scout pushed his sleeve up, tilting his forearm just so and pulling forth a marker. He scribbled a number down with only minimal pausing to remember it, and Sniper glanced up at his face when he realized what it was.

“That’s my phone number. And you’re gonna call me _at least_ once a week, _every_ week, until your contract is out too,” Scout said in a tone that meant he was not taking criticism or suggestions. He then took Sniper’s other arm and pushed that sleeve up too, starting to write down something else. “And this is my new address, and when you get the chance, you’re gonna turn up there and visit me or else I’m gonna hunt you down and kidnap you if I have to. Get it?”

“Got it,” Sniper agreed, holding still and being patient as Scout stumbled through writing out the address. He looked over the first line, eyes widening only slightly. “…Jeremy? That’s your name?”

Scout jerked slightly at it, glancing up at him briefly. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s me.”

A pause. “We’re not… supposed to mention our real names,” he said carefully.

“Well, I don’t have the job anymore, so…” he shrugged, and finished writing, and capped the pen, and blew on the ink partially just to make Sniper laugh at the ticklish feeling of it. “And… I dunno. If… if Australia isn’t something that you want, I just… most of my brothers moved out and moved on, and it’ll just be me and my Ma, and I bet she’d, she’d like you and all, and…”

Sniper looked at the address on his arm and not at Scout. It was a few years since Sniper’s mum and dad had finally kicked the bucket within a month or so of each other. He only ever got an update every few months from the bloke he’d hired to be in charge of the farm, and to be honest, there wasn’t much left there for him.

“Probably might take a month or two to sort things out back home,” Sniper said. “But… you can come along if you’d like, for that. When that time comes. And… who knows, after that.”

“Who knows,” Scout agreed, smiling at him, relieved. Sniper smiled back.

Both of their smiles faded within a few moments.

“Get back in here,” Scout mumbled, and they embraced again.

“Calls weekly,” Sniper repeated, voice just slightly rasping. “Twice weekly, even.”

“Promise I’ll pick up,” Scout agreed.

“And you’re going to stay away from, from cliffs, from intersections, from any bomb in any context whatsoever—“ Sniper started in, voice shaking.

Scout laughed. “Miss P says I’m in the system still for about two years after I leave just in case someone tries to come and kill me for working there,” he said. “I’ll just turn up at the closest place to Boston—Sawmill, probably.”

“So if we get a stationed in Sawmill you’ll walk into traffic twice weekly—“ Sniper started in, tone so deadly serious that Scout’s immediately registered it as a joke, laughing.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, a little more seriously.

They were interrupted by the train arriving at the station, heralded by the whistle.

Sniper spoke again when the noise had died down to something he could reasonably be heard over when he raised his voice. “I love you,” Sniper said, honestly.

“I love you too,” Scout replied. And he glanced around their immediate vicinity, saw that practically all eyes were on the train, and reached up to take gentle hold of Sniper’s chin, tilting his face and pulling him down just enough to quickly kiss him on one stubbly cheek. “Only ten months,” Scout said, a bit quieter now. “Then Australia. Then who knows.”

“Then who knows,” Sniper confirmed.

Scout looked back as he was stepping onto the train. Sniper caught sight of him briefly, putting his luggage up onto the rack. He moved over to wave at Sniper through the window briefly, and Sniper waved back.

Then, too soon, the train was pulling away from the station. And he couldn’t see Scout anymore through any of the windows, but he waved anyways, for as long as he could make out the individual windows on the train.

He looked down at his arms. “Ten months,” he repeated to himself. After ten years, it shouldn’t have put such a hole in his chest. But he couldn’t help it.


	34. Heavy/Medic, "Hands on the other's back."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: 61 for heavy and medic, pls??? 💙 -blu-"
> 
> today we’re gonna play a fun game called “spot the starkid reference” ft some very domestic and sappy heavymedic content. (warning for passing mention of medic doing medic-y things)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[#61. Hands On The Other Person’s Back, Fingertips Pressing Under Their Top, Drawing Gentle Circles Against That Small Strip Of Bare Skin That Make Them Break The Kiss With A Gasp.]]

“Doktor did not eat dinner,” Heavy observed, standing in the doorway of the infirmary. Medic didn’t even look up at him before he hummed dismissively, which made Heavy sigh.

Medic loved experimentation. Everyone on the team knew that. Absolutely every chance he got—every time Miss Pauling had a spare, fresh cadaver—he would spend his time going to town, experimenting with electricity or chemicals, with replacement organs, everything. What he _didn’t_ love was the paperwork surrounding it, the amount of effort it took to get black market exotic animals or their organs—made easier through Mann Co. and their suppliers, many of whom were already just black market with additional bureaucracy, but that bureaucracy was frustrating and tedious—and the amount of notes that followed, writing down observations as quickly as he could remember them when he was finished so they wouldn’t be forgotten, then spending large spans of time trying to write them a second time in a more organized fashion so they would actually be useable.

Heavy wasn’t entirely sure what Medic was working on just then, the ordering or the revising, but he knew he’d missed dinner because of it, and that was a bad thing. He understood Medic missing a meal because he was getting his hands dirty, but the paperwork could very much wait.

He left the infirmary again, going and stacking some amount of the leftovers on a plate and wrapping a layer of plastic over it to keep it warm, taking a fork and spoon as well before walking back over. Medic hadn’t moved an inch when he got back, too laser-focused on his work.

Heavy set the fork and spoon down on the piece of paper Medic was writing on, which was enough to get him to look up, at least. Then he quickly shuffled the paper aside as Heavy put down the plate.

“Eat, Doktor,” he instructed gently.

Medic’s eyebrows furrowed. “Heavy, I am working,” he said, a little shortly.

“Is not important. Eating is important. Doktor will waste away at tiny desk,” Heavy replied, tone gentle.

Medic looked like he was going to argue more, but Heavy unwrapped the plate and presumably he smelled the food and realized how hungry he was, looking down at it with some amount of surprise.

Heavy pulled over the chair Medic kept nearby to sit down with him while he dug in. When they’d first arrived, it wasn’t actually big enough for Heavy to fit in correctly. But then one day it had been broken during some incident, and when Medic replaced it, he’d gotten one of a size that Heavy could comfortably use. Once he was sat down, he started speaking quietly, if haltingly, about everything that happened at dinner. An argument, a second argument, and a joke that Demo made at Spy’s mild expense was apparently very good but that Heavy didn’t quite understand.

“It is a pun, but Heavy is not sure for what,” he said when he recounted it.

Medic raised the back of his hand to his mouth for the sake of politeness until his mouth was clear, then spoke. “Well, Charlotte is a name, and the word charlatan sounds similar to it. It usually means, er… like a con artist. A more, er… more extravagant word to use for a liar or fraud. And often nicknames, especially in English, are just shortened to the first part. So the alias Spy had used was Charlotte, short for charlatan, _ja?”_

Heavy followed along, and laughed when understanding finally hit, loud and unabashed. Medic chuckled as well, returning to eating. “Thank you for explaining, Doktor. That is very good joke,” he said, extremely pleased.

“It’s a shame I missed it,” Medic agreed, taking a moment to ball up the plastic wrap and drop it into the trash can, putting the fork and spoon back on the plate to set aside. He looked aimlessly over his desks, apparently only just then noticing the wide spread of papers and not sure where he’d left off.

“Doktor has worked hard, should take break,” Heavy said, tone dropping down to something quieter.

“Out of the question,” Medic said shortly, managing to find his pen from within the piles of paper and searching for whichever paper he’d been working on. “There is too much that needs doing.”

Heavy took Medic’s wrist in one massive hand, and Medic didn’t startle so much as go alert, looking up at him. He kept his expression serious. “Should take break,” he repeated, more slowly, more firmly.

Medic deflated, even if he still didn’t speak for a little while. Hesitated. “Ten minutes, then I’m getting back to work,” he said.

Heavy smiled. “Good,” he agreed, and stood, guiding Medic to his feet and a half-step in, then promptly pulling him into a ginger embrace.

After a moment or two of returning it, Medic exhaled heavily. “All you are going to do is hug me?” he asked, tone pointed, and Heavy laughed, moving back to instead pull Medic up into a kiss.

Medic’s arms went around his waist. Heavy was a large man, and often in the past his lovers hadn’t quite been able to get their arms all the way around him. But Medic was no small man himself, and could generally at least lace his fingers together around Heavy’s back when they embraced, and could make it around his waist when they were kissing.

Long, lazy minutes were spent that way, exchanging gentle kisses, Medic humming happily between each of them. He felt his thoughts drifting, his breath starting to get away from him a little, and he was snapped back into reality when he suddenly felt Medic’s hands dip below the back of his shirt where it often rode up when he was leaned forward like this, starting to draw circles against his skin in terribly pleasant little motions.

He broke the kiss with a gasp, having not realized how deep it had gotten when he wasn’t paying attention. Medic was grinning, some part of it a bit sharp in a way that others sometimes found unsettling.

“Doktor,” Heavy said, and a shiver went up through his back when Medic’s motions widened rather than stopping. “Said ten minutes.”

“I know,” he replied lightly, the barest shade of defensive.

“Door is unlocked,” he said more pointedly.

Medic huffed, leaning up to nip at Heavy’s jaw in lieu of pouting. “If someone comes in here and doesn’t like what they find, that is their problem, not mine,” he said, the tiniest bit testy.

Heavy gave him a Look.

“Fine, then I’ll go lock it,” Medic said next, an edge of complaint starting to creep into view, but he was stopped when Heavy didn’t let go of him to let him move away.

“Doktor will complain at Heavy if he gets very much distracted,” he chided.

“When have I ever done that?” Medic asked, brows furrowing.

“This morning. Also morning before. Also during weekend, and weekend before that—“

_“Ja_, alright, fine, I get it,” Medic mumbled, leaning in to kiss at Heavy’s neck a few more times, then sighing. “Fine. At least just…”

Heavy waited for Medic to finish his sentence.

“At least sit with me,” he finally requested.

Heavy nodded without even really needing to think about it. “Heavy can do this,” he said easily.

_“Vielen Dank,”_ he said, relaxing a bit.

Heavy dipped into Medic’s room briefly to get the book he’d left there, returning and pulling the chair even just slightly closer and sitting down to read. After a few minutes of Heavy and Medic’s reading and writing in silence respectively, Medic stretched a hand forward across the desk. Heavy reflexively closed the gap, lacing their fingers together on the tabletop. Turning pages became a bit of an issue, but that was alright. He would deal with a lot of inconveniences for his Doktor. Heavy loved him.

From the fact that Medic stopped writing several long moments before he stopped kneading little circles against the back of Heavy’s hand when he finally drifted off, falling asleep right there over his paperwork as he so often did, well, that was what told Heavy that Medic loved him too.


	35. Engineer/Spy, "Hoarse whisper, 'kiss me'."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: °68 napoleon complex? -🦂"
> 
> this is so goddamn sappy and sad dude. (warnings for blood, severe injury, and major character death)]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[#68. A Hoarse Whisper “Kiss Me”.]]

Engie frantically scribbled down a series of numbers, picking up the compass for the sixth time in a minute to squint at it again before putting it down on the map, visibly frazzled.

“I—I think you’ll end up somewhere in one of the chambers at… at Suijin, I think. Kong King is out of range,” he said, glancing over at Spy fretfully.

“Japan,” Spy mused, voice weak but still somehow managing to be snarky. “Unfortunate that I haven’t been brushing up on anything besides my Mandarin for the past several weeks.”

A mission had gone awry. The Engineer was meeting with some potential business partners of their employer who wanted to talk to him personally about his inventions, to ensure that he was indeed as intelligent as they’d heard. Spy was sent along as backup and to help translate during business proceedings. And things had gone off largely without a hitch, and they’d been returning to their hotel, when suddenly Spy noticed a dot of light flickering against the wall, a mere half-step behind the Engineer and closing.

He’d shoved him into cover in an instant, and received a bullet to the lower abdomen for the trouble. They’d gotten through the remaining two blocks to their hotel, mostly through the use of Spy’s cloaking watch quickly secured to the Engineer’s wrist and Spy ducking and moving expertly through cover. Once in their hotel room, Spy had all but collapsed, managing to sit himself in the bathroom and fumbling fruitlessly with the first aid kit in trembling hands for the two minutes it took Engie to pull their blinds shut and shoot off a call to Miss Pauling about the situation.

Spy had lost a lot of blood, and Engie couldn’t seem to stop the bleeding. He’d managed to fish out the bullet, managed to figure out what all had been hit. Clearly, several very important things, because Spy just kept getting weaker and weaker, bleeding out there at the edge of the bathtub, only barely fighting shock as it tried to set in. It occurred to Engie that he outright might not make it, and he’d quickly busted out a series of maps, desperately trying to figure out if the two of them were in range of any of their outpost bases, whether he would be able to rely on Respawn or not.

He didn’t have exact numbers, not on him. If he was in his workshop, he’d be able to figure it out. But he was half-remembering numbers—was it an 18 or a 19?—and his hands kept shaking as he handled the compass, triangulating. And the result seemed to be a hearty maybe. Maybe Spy would Respawn and be alright, if admittedly probably in for a bit of trouble in regards to having a way to get back to their base proper. Or maybe not.

The Engineer moved to pull his glove back on shakily, pulling off his goggles and fixing Spy with a look. Spy had been moved to lie in the bathtub itself, mostly for the sake of cleaning up mess.

The machines would absolutely try to pick up Spy’s dead body. That wasn’t the question. The question would be whether he would show back up alive somewhere.

“You tore up my suit for nothing,” Spy complained mildly, blinking at him slowly.

The gauze on his side had long soaked through. His suit was ruined anyway. Sitting down and trying to get comfortable on the tile floor next to Spy, Engineer tried to get the voice to taunt him back, make fun, make light of the situation. But he couldn’t.

Spy just looked at him, expression fairly calm. “I was hoping I wouldn’t be awake for my funeral,” he admitted, voice just a rasp. “That it would be quick and I would not see it coming.”

“You might make it,” Engie protested weakly.

Spy snorted. A brief silence fell between them, words unsaid, words running out of time to be said, but Engie wasn’t sure how fast. “Laborer,” Spy said suddenly. “Take my mask off.”

Engie blanched. “What? No, I can’t,” he protested.

“You can and you will,” Spy replied, deadly serious. “I want you to have seen what I look like. Even if you don’t remember me without my mask, I at least want someone who might have a _chance_ at remembering.”

“You’re not thinkin’ straight, Spy, you’ve lost a lot of blood, and anyways if you don’t die and I’ve seen you—“

“If I don’t die, I’ll have nothing to worry about,” Spy snapped. “If I don’t die, I might as well spend my last moments here drinking a margarita and watching reality television. But we are not preparing for that, because there is nothing to prepare. Instead I would like to prepare for what will happen if I _do_ die. Now take off my mask.”

Engie hesitated for another moment before he did so.

He moved carefully, working hard not to yank or hurt Spy in any way, gently guiding the fabric off of him. When it was finally free, he was only slightly surprised. Fewer scars on his face than expected, a smattering of stubble, clearly cleaned up fairly recently but not so recently as to be called properly near. His hair was going grey in places, a dark brown, and while it apparently was usually straightened and slicked back against his head it was starting to spring free of the gel thanks, presumably, to sweat and the mask being removed, and it would appear that it was naturally quite curly.

“I apologize,” Spy said muzzly, eyes dropping further. “I promise I would have cleaned up had I known there would be a special occasion to do so. Forgive me.”

“It’s fine,” Engie assured, laughing lightly, working hard to keep it a laugh and not a hiccup or a sob. “You’re still gorgeous.”

Spy rolled his eyes lightly, looking away, even as a grin ticked at his mouth. “Mercenary the majority of your life, and you’re still a terrible liar,” he managed, throat rough.

“You are,” Engie insisted, reaching forward to cup at his face and turn him to look forward again. “Really.”

Spy hummed, tilting some mild amount into the hand, looking him over slowly. “If I do not Respawn, I will need you to pass along an amount of information,” he started in even though his voice clearly hurt. “There is a locked suitcase in the closet of my room with the passcode carved into the underside of my desk in my false room.”

“False room?” Engie repeaed.

“Oui. When the Sniper decided he would not be using his room in the base, I made a deal with him that I could have it. The room with my nameplate is not where I actually sleep. There is a false room to make it appear that I do, but the back of the wardrobe pops free and you can go through into the other room. That is where I actually sleep, and that is where the suitcase is.”

Engie nodded, blinking at this new information.

“In the suitcase are several letters I’ve prepared in the event of my death.” A muscle in his jaw went tight. “It is up to your discretion whether you open your own. All it contains is several pictures of me without my mask and a short note telling you what I will tell you in a moment regardless. They have varying importance, but make sure that Scout recieves his. That is the most important envelope there.”

He nodded again, and Spy cleared his throat.

“And…” Spy paused for a moment. When he laughed, it was weak. “It just occurred to me that this is selfish of me, to be saying this to you.” When he looked up at Engie, his eyes, usually so sharp and alert, seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Damn you, Conagher. You made me care about that sort of thing.”

Engie’s laugh really was more of a sob this time. He took Spy’s hand in his own. “I didn’t make you do a single thing you didn’t already wanna do, Spy,” he said, and Spy managed a smile. “Go on. What is it?”

Spy blinked once or twice to reorient himself. “I… I am in love with you,” Spy said, and looked up at him again.

His lungs felt entirely empty of air.

“I have been for several months now,” Spy continued to fill the silence. “The idea was that I would continue to win you over for some time before I told you. However long that took. I understand that sometimes I can be… difficult. And… I don’t know, I really don’t know. But I thought you deserved to know.”

“You’re serious?” Engie asked, cupping his cheek again, thumb running over a scar there. “You’re not just sayin’ this to… to, hell if I know, make me feel better?”

“How would that make you feel better?” Spy reasoned with a huff. “I am dying.”

“True,” Engie acquiesced. A brief silence fell between them, and Engie desperately wanted the silence to go away again, because all of a sudden he could hear Spy’s breathing, hollow and shaking and rattling in his chest, and he didn’t want to. But he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“May I make one more request of you?” Spy asked, voice barely a whisper now.

“Of course,” Engie said, squeezing his hand.

“Kiss me?” he asked hoarsely, voice so horribly quiet, and he did. Of course he did. How could he not?

Spy’s lips were dry, his movements slow and unbalanced, but Engie didn’t, couldn’t complain. All he could do was try to memorize the feeling of Spy, here with him, his presence. All he could do was pray.

Engie wasn’t a praying man. A father and a grandfather before him constantly playing god rather than raising him would do that to a person. But he wracked his brain to try to remember his Hail Marys, any prayer that he could get any grip on, anything at all that might persuade some kind of god—hopefully a kinder one than his lineage—to spare Spy just then.

When he pulled back again, Spy’s eyes were damp, and his chest was moving in jerky motions rather than a smooth up-and-down. “Thank you,” he managed. Then he tried to murmur something in French, furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to figure out how to say it in English, and in that moment, he watched Spy finally black out.

He shifted, rested his cheek on Spy’s hand, moved his free hand to check for a pulse. For about twenty seconds, it was weak, but it was still there. For ten of those seconds, he just waited. In the final ten, he was hit with the horrible realization that he hadn’t said it back.

“Oh god,” he gasped, reached up to hold Spy’s face, a burn at his tear ducts. “Oh god, Spy, I love you too. Oh _god_, can you hear me? Spy? Please, c’mon!”

He got no response, but a few seconds later, he felt Spy’s pulse finally stop, his pinky of his human hand resting over his pulse point.

For ten seconds, it was just him and a body, and then it was whisked away.

He had to get up, because he had a call to expect from Miss Pauling. Some time fairly shortly she’d promised to have answers on who might be targeting him, whether he was safe to get a taxi to the airport to flee back to America. He would have hours, maybe, until police arrived at the hotel to ask several very uncomfortable questions, and they would likely not be deterred for long about the fact that the blood trail had up and disappeared.

So he sat by the phone, trying to collect himself. His breath wouldn’t stop heaving, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. Very briefly, he became convinced that he was going to be sick, but he couldn’t go back into that bathroom again, couldn’t stare at the empty bathtub.

The phone rang, and he picked it up before it was even halfway through the first ring, croaking a greeting.

“I could hear you,” came a purr through the telephone, and then a familiar snorting laugh, and then Engie cried some more, feeling very much like he was about to collapse. “By the way, you were incorrect. I am in Hong Kong, not Japan. You may need to brush up on those math degrees of yours, _mon petit cher.”_

“Maybe,” he agreed, wiping at his eyes self-consciously, as if Spy could see him. “Maybe.”


	36. Sniper/Scout, Sirens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[finally got around to writing that crossfaction sniperscout drabble y’all. snagged some inspiration from that one fanart by @hallowedgal because it slaps severely
> 
> this is only like 1k words but also it could’ve been 0 words so who’s laughing now writer’s block?
> 
> (warnings for minor canon-typical violence and general sappiness. gonna just rate this one pg-13)]]

The sirens were blaring, practically ear-splitting over every loudspeaker and through every earpiece, including Scout’s, which was lying on the floor not far away from him. _”Enemy RED in the base!”_ was the tinny, pre-recorded alarm message, and Scout could hear the rest of his team scrambling through the various hallways all across the base, desperately searching for whichever member of the enemy team managed to weasel their way in through their defenses.

He was definitely working through Scout’s defenses pretty quickly as well, but that was to be expected.

The mouth against his own worked with more determination, more conviction than the entire rest of the Scout’s team combined. Scout’s wrists were both held pinned up against the wall, more for the sake of deniability than anything else, and also because the Sniper seemed to enjoy the way that Scout fought to close the space between them again every time he pulled back for breath, flashing him half-annoyed half-desperate looks under the harsh red light of the sirens.

“C’mon,” he griped when the Sniper remained pulled away for just a touch too long, voice cracking just slightly where he tried to keep it at a murmur in case any camera’s microphones could pick it up under the klaxon, even here in a blind spot. The Sniper’s shirt was an almost alarmingly bright shade of red under the beam of the siren-light, and kicked his heartbeat into high gear, giving him a burst of adrenaline that made him fight to get a hand free for real so he could pull the man back in himself. The Sniper finally relented, sinking back forward again and kissing until his lungs ached and his head spun, drowning out the sounds and the lights.

Except, suddenly, the sound of boots, much too close, and they parted again, both panting severely. “Ought to go to the bar in town on Friday,” the Sniper hissed under his breath, far too hurried. “The one with the black paint on the door. Heard they’re having a special.”

“By the motels?” Scout asked, lip quirking despite being red and a bit swollen from where the Sniper had been biting at it. “With the jukebox?”

“Exactly,” the Sniper growled, grinning right back. “Out of uniform and all that. Ditch the hat and the vest and I’d look like a regular bloke. Might get away with it. You could too.”

“Our Demo goes there sometimes during the week,” Scout said.

“Then Saturday,” Sniper tried, and nipped just under Scout’s ear, once and twice, hard enough to make him gasp but not hard enough to bruise or leave a real mark. “Saturday, Sunday, I don’t care. I don’t bloody _care_.”

“Wow, giving up on that drink special? God, it almost sounds like you got a _crush_ on me or somethin’,” Scout joked, trying not to seem too desperate even as he melted under the attention, voice wavering.

The Sniper pulled back and gave him a hard look, raising an eyebrow. “Now where would you get that idea?” he asked dryly, just loud enough to be heard over the sirens, glasses glinting under the spinning lights, the cacophony of panic around them leaving him largely unphased. “Me? For a BLU? You’re delusional. Maybe I just want you to go to the bar so I can kick your teeth in during my free time, how ‘bout that?”

“I’ll think about it,” Scout teased, and pressed forward, trying to get just one more kiss out of the man, but Sniper leaned back, glancing out to their left at the sound of shouting.

“No time,” the Sniper said apologetically. “Sorry.”

Scout did look a little beat up about it, but hid it well behind another little smile. “It happens. Just get on with it.”

“Really,” Sniper said, shifting his weight. “I’m sorry we have to—“

“I said to get on with it, you goddamn RED,” Scout teased, smile widening for only a moment before the fear of the sound of boots right around the corner drove it away again.

Sniper nodded fretfully. “Right.” He swallowed hard, took a breath, and his demeanor shifted, pressing Scout back against the wall with some force, face twisting into an angry sneer. “Tell me where the—“ was as far as he got into his sentence, voice raised, before Scout’s own Engineer rounded the corner, spotted him, and unloaded three shots from his pistol into the man. One landed in his lower ribcage, one a little higher, until the last connected with his head, sending him sprawling down to the ground away from Scout.

“Scooter!” the Engineer exclaimed, hurrying over to the Scout, gun still pointed at the Sniper just in case. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Scout said, a good facsimile of annoyed, rubbing at his wrist idly. “Yeah, I’m good. Bastard surprised me is all.”

“What happened?” Engie demanded, finally putting his gun back away as the Sniper’s body disappeared.

“Clocked me in the mouth right when I turned around, slammed me into the wall and tried to get me to say where our briefcase is,” Scout recounted easily, throwing in a wince for good measure. “Real low, sending in the Sniper on a suicide mission like that. REDs must be getting pretty desperate.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Engie said, clapping his flesh-and-blood hand on Scout’s shoulder amicably as the sirens finally stopped and the regular lights kicked back on. “Sheesh, the man really did a number on your lip, huh?”

“You can say that again,” Scout laughed, and slugged the Engineer on the shoulder as he passed by. “Dispenser still up by the intel room?”

“Sure is.”

“Thanks, pal.”

Once he was out of sight, Scout did not in fact go to the dispenser about his lip. Instead, he went back to his own room, and stayed there for the rest of the night, staring up at the ceiling and sighing to himself like a chick in a stupid goddamn romance novel.

He marked off Saturday on his calendar.


	37. Engineer&Pyro, Español

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: (No romantic ship) pyro hanging out with engie? (If you're still taking drabble requests)"
> 
> heck yeah dude!! (warnings for… nothing, actually)]]

“Firebug, care to pass me the—“

The screwdriver was in his glove before he could even finish his sentence.

“Thankin’ you kindly,” he said, rolling back beneath the truck.

“No problem,” Pyro replied.

As far as Engie was aware, Pyro took their mask off partially in a grand total of three situations, and fully in only two. They took it off fully when they needed to bathe and needed to cut their hair, and partially when they ate, when they used the telephone in privacy, and when they were alone with Engie in his workshop. Even then, the last one had taken a considerable amount of time to be entrusted with, and was only for ease of communication (since Engie knew his hearing was starting to go, a combination of age, bad genes, and having worked with guns for most of his life).

This was for a couple of reasons. For one, after so many years of wearing it near-constantly, Pyro felt a little vulnerable when their mask was off. There was also the issue of Pyro often getting overwhelmed by too many bright lights, too much sound and commotion, too many smells and actions and conversations at once—the mask was a good way of minimizing things. Pyro had also expressed that they had a vague discomfort with their own face and features, and would rather avoid thinking about it, or others being able to discern the details of what they looked like. “I don’t want anyone to have hints,” they’d said once, and Engie could understand that to an extent.

As it was, there were only two reasons the Engineer had the privilege of knowing what any part of Pyro looked like and getting to speak with them so often—the first being that, as a legacy Engineer, the third Conagher to work with Mann Co. in any capacity, meant he was practically the first person to be contacted when they’d gone and assembled new teams, with Pyro being among the first new recruits. He’d spent quite a lot of time talking to them before anyone else came to join the team, and as a result he’d been entrusted with a lot of information, and given the task of getting to introduce them to new people who _hadn’t_ gotten used to listening to someone through a mask.

Once, they’d told Engie that he was their first real friend. That had really solidified things between them into a steady kind of friendship that Engie hadn’t had the privilege of since his years at university.

The other reason Pyro tended to like talking to Engineer the best out of the rest of the team—

_”You worked through dinner again, by the way,”_ Pyro said in Spanish, words flowing a lot more easily.

_”I know, I know. By the time I realized I was late, I would’ve missed it anyways,”_ Engie replied in kind, words only tainted by his drawl.

_”If you collapse under that truck, it would take me a while to realize it, you know,”_ Pyro commented, and Engie could practically hear the way their arms were crossed over their chest, head tilted disapprovingly. When they were in a mask, their theatrical gestures were helpful to discern their emotions. Once out of it, they just looked a little bit silly. _”Hours, days.”_

_”You’d notice around the same time that you and Scout kicked the door down and demanded my help with the scheme of the week,”_ Engie chuckled.

“Oh! By the way, did you know Scout can speak Spanish?” Pyro said, switching back to English suddenly.

“No, I didn’t, since when?” he asked, surprised.

“I dunno what dialect it has to be, sounds, ah, I think Puerto Rican?” Pyro said. “He says he learned it in school then learned it better from talking to the other kids where he lived growing up. Spy kept saying it wasn’t real Spanish, but he learned from Spain anyway, so what does he know?”

“Didn’t think there were a lot of Spanish-speaking folks in Boston,” Engie said.

_”There’s a bit of everyone everywhere,”_ Pyro said easily. “His accent is terrible, though.”

Engie laughed. “Yeah?”

“I mean, yours is worse, but…”

“Really? That bad?”

“You talk so slow!” Pyro groaned. “In English, in Spanish, no matter what you’re always lagging… behind… like this… all… the time. Scout is the only other person around here who talks like we have somewhere to be, _you know?”_

“Think he’ll catch on?” Engie asked, rolling back and fishing for a moment before he managed to find the oil rag he was using. “That that‘s the reason I can always understand what you’re saying and nobody else can half the time?”

_”My God I hope so,” _Pyro groaned. ”_I’d rather he figures it out himself and doesn’t say anything. I kind of like having the privacy of being able to talk in peace, you know? I hope Spy doesn’t figure it out first, but that’s where the smart money is.”_

_”I’ll put my money on Scout, he’s brighter than people give him credit for,” _Engie shrugged.

_”Ha, I’ll take that bet!”_


	38. Sniper/Scout, Monkees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: need some speedingbullet listening to music together ❤ i imagine they're the kinda people to always have a record spinning away in the background"
> 
> so i accidentally wrote a little songfic is what happened here i think (ft. a song i listened to in middle school on repeat for some reason)]]

The record player was the best purchase Scout had ever made.

They were laid out next to each other on the floor of Scout’s room, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, Scout’s fingers twined together with his own. They were laid out on the rug as opposed to Scout’s bed because the bastard had just dumped his largely-cyan pile of laundry there for folding and promptly outright forgotten to do the folding, and his desk’s chair was piled with loose comic books, and the little sofa was housing a backpack, a box of snack foods, his bat and headset, and about a dozen other assorted objects of varying levels of importance. In the record player was some album Scout had picked up—one of the newer albums in his collection, run about two years previously. Besides the latest hits, he actually mostly listened to a lot of older jazz, claiming it as a relic of his early and later childhood.

Scout’s favorite part about this album, apparently, were the titles of the songs. Sniper was more a fan of one or two of the songs themselves.

“The one after this is my favorite of theirs on this album, I think,” Sniper commented halfway through the fourth song.

“What’s your favorite overall?” Scout asked, sounding a little amused.

“Hmm. Probably “I Wanna Be Free”, from the first album,” he replied after a moment of thought. “It did well back in Oz, apparently.”

Scout nodded at that, Sniper could tell vaguely in his periphery. “It’s alright,” he allowed, and then they fell silent again.

Sniper never really knew what he’d be doing by that point in his life. When he was twenty, if you’d asked him where he’d be ten years later, he’d probably come back with a simple and confident reply of “Dead.” If you’d asked him the same thing five years ago, he probably would’ve given the same answer. Now, he didn’t know what to think. Thirty-five seemed ages away, unachievable, but he’d already been wrong before. He hadn’t expected to ever get around to coming to terms with the whole “liking blokes” thing, let alone dating, let alone…

Did people still say “going steady”? He was fairly sure they didn’t, not really. Regardless.

Scout’s hand was warm in his own, a calming presence rather than a vaguely nerve-wracking one.

Scout huffed a laugh as the intro to the next song played and he realized which one it was, while Sniper just smiled.

“Oh I could hide, ‘neath the wing, of the bluebird as it sings,” he murmur-sung along, looking over and squeezing Scout’s hand pointedly at the word “bluebird”, making Scout scoff and elbow him, face going red in a pleasing contrast to his shirt. Sniper smiled, looking back up at the ceiling again, and found it hard to keep from humming along to the song.

This was definitely a much more… normal lifestyle than he ever thought he’d have. He essentially worked a nine-to-five (or an eight-to-four, technically), with a steady fixed income and a set of coworkers. He got weekends off, and two weeks away in the summer, and nearly three in the winter. Death, while a nearly everyday occurrence, wasn’t a concern for him, and he was even permitted sick days (although he never bothered taking them). And he’d ended up together with one of his coworkers, in a relationship for almost a full year by then. Sniper had even told his _parents_ about him.

It wasn’t enough for his dad, of course it wasn’t, but his mum seemed proud of him, of the progress he’d made. Away from turbulence and into steadiness, even if it wasn’t necessarily law school like she’d suggested during the better part of his growing up.

He’d mentioned that to Scout, whose only comment was a laugh and him saying that Sniper would probably look hot in a suit and tie.

_Cheer up sleepy Jean, oh what can it mean?_

He started mouthing along with the next words lightly, with “to a daydream believer—and a homecoming queen?”, unable to articulate exactly what it was about the rhythm that so appealed to him.

He was happy. It occurred to him all at once, startling like a lightning bolt. He was happy. Maybe a bit uncomfortable with lying on the ground, getting a bit peckish as dinnertime approached, somewhat sleepy, but looking into his heart, he didn’t find his nearly-omnipresent nerves, or irritation, or fear of the future or the past or stagnation in the present. He just felt _happy._

He turned his head to look over at Scout and found that he was already looking at Sniper, had been watching him mouth along with the words, and that he was smiling lightly. His dimple was making an appearance, and he glanced up to look Sniper in the eye. He was fairly sure Scout hadn’t had that many freckles when he’d first shown up in their desert, years ago.

Years ago. What a strange thought.

“Cheer up sleepy Jean, oh what can it mean?” Scout sung along quietly, maybe teasing him, maybe just also caught in Sniper’s mild euphoria, the miniature heaven he’d found himself in.

_To a daydream believer, and a homecoming queen?_


	39. Sniper/Scout, Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["scoutrans asked: [thinks about a comfort fic with sniper and scout cuddling and scouts a little mopey that night (ty spy ily spy) and he asks really quietly “am I stupid” and sniper gives the 745 reasons scout is Not stupid because he REALLY is Not]"
> 
> i will stand by the fact that scout’s not dumb he just has ADHD until the day i fucking die and that’s that. (warnings for very mild violence and scout hurt followed right away by scout comfort)]]

At least Scout had finally settled down, Sniper thought to himself, carding his fingers through his hair.

Sniper had seen him outside having a run, heading in circles around the base and surrounding land at a pretty brisk pace. It was something Scout did sometimes to clear his head, and Sniper would catch sight of him doing that pretty regularly, and so wasn’t too much concerned. Then, an hour later, when he looked outside and saw Scout still running despite the fact that it was getting dark, he’d gone outside.

And it hadn’t startled him that Scout was out of breath—jogging for an hour would do that to anyone, even someone as in-shape as Scout—but it startled him to see that Scout was breathing so heavily through his mouth. Then he realized Scout had probably been doing that for some time, because all at once he noticed that Scout’s nose was bright red and very swollen, blood all across the bottom half of his face.

He hadn’t even asked at first, just taking Scout by the wrist and pulling him back to his camper. He’d given Scout a glass of water (which was drained in about five gulps), cleaned the blood off his face (“Oh, shit, that was bleeding again? I thought that was just sweat—“), and gotten an ice pack for his nose.

“What happened?” Sniper asked once all that was taken care of, tone leaving no room for argument.

Scout’s head fell, and he remained silent.

“Bilby, if you don’t tell me who did this, I’m going to head inside that base and start putting holes in the first bloke I find,” he said matter-of-factly, aware that his voice was intimidating and trying very hard to keep anger out of his tone. “What. Happened?”

“I got in a fight,” Scout started, speaking slowly, carefully. Sniper was tempted to interrupt, to say yeah, clearly, but he didn’t, just letting Scout talk. “Spy was just, he was getting on my case again, and, and saying all kinds of fuckin’… garbage. About… just, it was… look, he was just on my case again, alright? And I, I mouthed off, and then there was a fight, and half the team came in to break it up, and I… went out to take a run, and then I just, I don’t fuckin’ wanna go back in there.”

“Alright,” Sniper said quietly, putting a cautious hand on his shoulder in what he hopes was a comforting motion. “Alright, you can… stay here tonight.”

“But you—“ Scout started to protest, but he cut himself off, setting his jaw.

“What? What is it?” Sniper gently prompted.

“You said you don’t want me in here on weekdays,” Scout said quietly, unable to look at him.

Sniper’s heart ached. “When did I say that?”

“Last week. You said…” Scout started hesitantly, glancing up at him.

Silence. “Mate, I, I meant about sleeping over, since we have work in the morning and neither of us gets to bed when you do, we’re always up talking until late, I—you’re always welcome in here, I just wanted to make sure we were both getting enough sleep,” he clarified.

“But we’ve got work tomorrow,” Scout tried next, looking increasingly lost.

“We can make exceptions,” Sniper shrugged, “it’s alright. As long as we don’t make a habit of it.”

Scout nodded hesitantly, still clearly unsure. “So I can sleep over?”

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

To be honest, Sniper wasn’t particularly used to having to tiptoe around Scout. He wasn’t in the practice of being particularly rude to people, and it generally took something excessively mean to get Scout upset anyways, so it wasn’t a concern. Scout had a pretty thick skin. Except… apparently he didn’t. Because all at once he seemed hesitant, jumpy, visibly trying to make himself seem smaller, even if he didn’t seem to be aware of it.

He urged Scout to go ahead and use his shower, found some of Scout’s pajamas that he’d left over and passed them through the door. Soon enough Scout was in bed with him, settled in against him, curled around Sniper’s arm with his head on his chest. And finally he seemed relaxed, as ease, like he wasn’t just sitting and waiting for Sniper to kick him out. When the nervousness melted away, it seemed that Scout was left exhausted, tired down to his bones.

“Snipes?” Scout asked quietly, voice very soft, after a long few moments of quiet.

Sniper hummed in answer to show he was still awake, going back to fiddling with Scout’s hair. It was very soft, even a bit damp, and it smelled like his own shampoo, something that made his chest feel warm the more he thought about it. “Yeah?” he asked after another moment when Scout didn’t immediately go to speak.

“Am I stupid?”

Silence. Stillness. Sniper had frozen entirely as the words and the weight behind them sunk into his mind. “No,” was all he managed after a second, words clogging his throat and choking him.

Scout seemed to sink. “I won’t get mad if you tell the truth,” he murmured, and he just, he sounded so very small in that moment, and it broke Sniper’s heart.

“Scout, that _is_ the truth. Of course you aren’t stupid,” Sniper continued, free hand moving to squeeze Scout on the shoulder.

“Snipes, I can barely fuckin’ read, I almost didn’t make it through high school, I can’t ever remember anything important and I hardly even know English let alone—“

“Spy called you stupid?” Sniper cut in, just to be sure.

“And some other stuff,” Scout confirmed quietly. “But everyone calls me stupid. Because I _am_ stupid.”

“No, you aren’t,” Sniper said firmly, anger bubbling away deep in his chest, but he pushed it back down for the moment, taking a deep breath and setting it aside for later. “You’re not stupid. Just because you don’t think quite the same as everyone else, that doesn’t make you stupid.”

“What if it does?”

“Bilby, it _doesn’t_,” he insisted.

“Well I’m sure not _smart_,” Scout scoffed. “I don’t—everyone here is either really smart or really good at what they do, and I’m just not, I’m just fast, I’m not cool or good at fighting or, or smart, and I, I’m not like the rest of you guys, I’m just dead weight, I don’t belong here—“

“Yes you do,” Sniper said, working hard not to snap. “You’re one of the most clever blokes around here. Not book-smart, the real kind of smart. The kind where you think of things faster, notice things, react quickly. And you’re a bloody genius at reading people when it’s important to, you’re almost always the first one to notice when someone’s acting fishy, and every time Miss Pauling comes around you always get a read on how she’s doing even though she doesn’t talk to you much—“

“Spy can do that, and Heavy can do that—“ Scout mumbled.

“But they’re also both at least twenty years older than you and either have a degree or were literally trained to read people. With everything working against you, you’re still bloody bright.”

“Clever, huh, can’t even read—“

“You slammed your way through the entirety of that Ghost D.A. series in a weekend,” Sniper pointed out.

“The kids version.”

“It was a thirty-six volume series with about two hundred pages per book. You realize that’s still impressive, right?”

“I still barely made it through school—“

“You realize that technically the Doc never went to school?” Sniper interrupted.

A pause. “What?”

“He never went to school. He was in through… what do you lot call it, elementary school? Then he was homeschooled for the rest of the required time, then he got an apprenticeship from his family and cheated his medical exams to get his license. He never even went to a real university, he just skipped to doing a residency.”

“Well he still knows what he’s doing. He’s batshit crazy, yeah, way too excited whenever he gets a dead body to mess around and experiment on, but he can only do that because he’s smart. What the hell do I know how to do?”

“Talk to people, get through places efficiently, what can hold your weight and how to balance, you always remember where you are and where you were and how to get there, you always know what people mean when they talk to you about things even if they’re bad at explaining, you’re the most empathetic bloody person I’ve ever met in my life—that’s intelligence. You’re intelligent.”

“Snipes, I can’t ever _remember_ anything,” Scout all but snapped. “What’s the point of reading fast or knowing what people are talking about when I can’t think all the way back to breakfast, don’t know what day of the week it is half the time, always forget my chores and what I’ve gotta do for the day?”

Sniper took a deep breath. “Scout. That’s still okay. That still doesn’t make you stupid. Truckie forgets simple things like that too. So does Spy. They aren’t smarter than you, they’ve just got more practice at working around it. Truckie almost never remembers meals, Spy records things to listen to them back later.”

“He speaks like six languages,” Scout muttered.

“And he’s an arsehole in all six, what’s your point?”

For the first time that night, Scout laughed, even if it was just a little jump in his shoulders, a puff of air startled out of him.

“Bilby,” Sniper started in, voice gentle again. “You aren’t stupid. The blokes just… they pick an insult for everyone, is what it is. Soldier is insane, Demo’s a drunk, I’m a hermit, the Engineer is short. They don’t mean it, not really.”

“How come I’ve got so many, then?” Scout asked, tone not full of bitterness so much as… resigned insecurity. “I’m stupid, I’m scrawny, I’m loud, I’m annoying, I’m babyfaced, I’m uneducated, I’m rude…”

“No you aren’t, they’ve just decided to call you that,” Sniper was quick to correct.

“What’s the difference? If everyone thinks it, doesn’t that make it kinda true?”

“No,” Sniper said, carding his fingers back through Scout’s hair and feeling him relax at the attention. “No, it doesn’t.”

He kept petting at Scout’s hair for a little while, and Scout kept relaxing in increments. It was quiet for a long few moments, then minutes.

“I love you,” Sniper finally said, and Scout’s head tilted against him slightly. “And even if you were the dumbest bloke on the planet, I’d still love you. Even if you were all those things, I’d still love you. Because you’ve got a good heart, and you make me want to be better, make me want to work hard to deserve all the happiness you give me. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Scout said quietly. “I love you too.”

Silence.

“Night, Snipes,” Scout said, and he really did sound tired, terribly tired.

“Night, Bilby.”

-

The next day, Scout was still out of sorts, tired, lagging behind on his morning routine. Sniper turned the tables on what they usually did, offering to go get breakfast and bring it back to the camper for him. Scout agreed quickly, maybe too quickly, and Sniper pulled on his vest and hat and made his way into the base.

The kitchen was bustling, full to the brim with the rest of the team eating their own breakfasts of varying nutritional value. Sniper made his way to the counter where the main breakfast—eggs and bacon and toast, simple and straightforward and well-agreed-upon, it must have been Medic’s turn to cook. He packed up two little boxes and shoved them in his bag, then promptly made his way back into the main eating area.

He got one or two waves, an offhanded greeting. They all seemed unperturbed. Sniper wondered whether they’d even noticed that Scout was gone, and all the anger that he’d carefully pushed down bubbled and spilled over all at once.

He picked up one of the few empty chairs at the table and slammed it back down against the ground. The resounding _BANG_ of wood against concrete immediately drew the attention of the entire room.

“Bushman,” Spy greeted calmly from his immediate left, almost bored-looking. “Here to break our furniture, I see.”

“What’d you say to him?” Sniper asked, voice cold enough to freeze over hell.

Silence in the room, the few mercenaries not already looking alarmed quickly shifting to do so. All except Spy, who just sneered. “You’ll need to be more specific, I’m afraid,” he said with faux politeness, an undercurrent of venom that would have most people backing down.

Sniper was not most people. “What did you say to Scout yesterday?” he clarified. “Tell me what you said.”

“Oh, before he threw a temper tantrum and stormed off to hide in his room like a spineless coward?” Spy asked airily.

“He’s not in his room, Spook,” Sniper said, the deadly cold hardening further. “He’s not anywhere in the base. Now tell me what you said to him.”

In his periphery, troubled shuffling, glances, concern. Spy did no such thing, just rolling his eyes and producing a tape recorder from within his jacket, rolling it back expertly and stopping after a few moments, letting it play.

“—don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” came Scout’s voice, slightly odd-sounding, different on tape than it sounded in real life, as well as apparently being a bit distant.

“Yes I do,” came Spy’s voice, slightly louder. “You’re an idiot, and a man-child, and a coward, and are only in a desert shooting your little gun at men who can’t die because you couldn’t possibly get a job anywhere else. You’re lucky that Miss Pauling took pity on you and gave you a job here, or else you’d be lying dead, overdosed in a ditch somewhere along the east coast just like everyone else you ever knew. And the moment someone faster and more literate comes along, that’s where you’ll be ending up anyways. Before you do, pass along an apology to your mother for the inconvenience of a funeral.”

Spy clicked the button again to stop the tape, cutting off the sound of Scout starting to yell something. Then Spy moved to say something, probably snarky, probably clever, but it never made it out of his mouth, because Sniper’s fist connected with his jaw at high speeds.

As the Frenchman was sent sprawling out of his chair and to the ground, swearing, and several members of the team moved to stand up and start protesting, but Sniper squared his shoulders again and turned to level a look at them, and they promptly stopped. He shook out his hand, glaring coldly.

“I’m guessing none of you lot said anything, did you?” he asked, still cold. “Just pushed them apart when Scout stood up for himself.”

The silence spoke for itself.

“Here’s what’s going to happen now,” he continued when it became clear that nobody had anything to add. “You lot are going to stop with your little jokes. Stop your fun little game where you make fun of the littlest bloke here. And you’re going to apologize to Scout for the way you’ve all been acting. This isn’t the schoolyard, and you’re all far too old to be acting like bullies just because he hardly ever bothers standing up for himself. And if you don’t, if you keep acting like children, you’re going to regret it.”

“You plan on knocking the whole team out cold, son?” the Engineer asked down the table, his own tone sharp. “Or are you saying Scout’s gonna try?”

“No,” he said. “Neither of us. That’s not what I meant.”

Quiet for a second.

“You’re all willing to lose Scout over this?” he asked flatly, looking around the room. Several of the team couldn’t meet his eyes. “You’re alright with Scout leaving, quitting this job, rather than you lot putting in the effort to stop being complete fuckin’ bastards to him all the time?”

“Where is he? Where did little Scout go?” Heavy cut in to ask.

“Is the lad alright?” Demo asked, genuine concern etched across his face.

“I found him when he was out for a run,” Sniper replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Nose bleeding and all. Acting like he’d just seen a ghost. He talked to me. Maybe because I’m not a complete and utter cunt to him.”

Guilt seemed to be a common factor in most of the team’s expressions. Pyro had one hand up against their mask, body language that of upset.

“He told me he thinks he’s stupid. Worst bloke on the team, not as good as any of you lot. The weak link. Says he doesn’t think he belongs here. Wonder where he got that idea?” Sniper asked, the cold rage back in his voice again, and there were glances again, looks exchanged. “I’m not going to tolerate any more of what I just heard. Any of you in my line of sight start treating Scout like that again, there’ll be hell to pay. Because I’m not going to let you lot chase off the one good thing that’s ever happened to me just because you think you’re being _cute_.”

He shifted, looking over at Spy, who was still on the ground nursing his jaw, looking equal parts pissed off and concerned, something peeking through the anger, something that told Sniper that he really hadn’t ever considered the consequences.

“And if any of you give a damn about Scout, you won’t ever let _that_—“ a flippant gesture towards the fuming Frenchman, “—happen again. Do we have an understanding?”

A chorus of answers, all in the affirmative. Sniper nodded once, and promptly left the room.

-

He and Scout walked into the locker rooms to finish suiting up, and the place fell quiet.

Scout’s head sank, eyes falling to the floor, and he kept his head down as he walked to his locker, starting to wrap up his hands. He was doing that thing again, where he tried to make himself very, very small. Sniper sat down directly next to him as he pulled on and tightened the laces of the boots he generally wore into battle, and even that simple act of solidarity was enough at least to make Scout’s hands stop shaking so violently.

The click of expensive leather shoes on concrete, calmly coming towards them. Sniper felt the runner shift beside him, looking up, but he didn’t bother, keeping his eyes on his task.

“Scout,” Spy said, tone as aloof as every other day of the year.

“Just fuck off, Spy,” Scout mumbled, and perhaps Spy didn’t hear it, but Sniper did—the waver in his voice.

“No. I have something important to say,” Spy replied, tone even. A very brief pause fell. “I’m sorry.”

Sniper’s gaze flicked up. Scout went tense next to him. “What?”

“I apologize. I was out of line yesterday. I said several things which I very much regret. I sincerely did not think you cared enough about my opinion of you that my insults would in any way hurt, and clearly I was wrong, and so, I am sorry.” His words were awkward, not in the way of them being forced, but in the way that told them that Spy was uncomfortable, clearly not much used to giving real apologies.

Silence for a second before a Scout figured out how the hell to react to that. When he did speak, his voice was tight. “What, did Medic make you come over and apologize or something? Did Hardhat yell at you?” he asked, frustration filtering through.

“No. They did not. It just became very clear from your reaction that you were upset, and now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m…” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

Scout was quiet again. Sniper glanced at him. He looked confused, mostly. “Okay,” he finally said, very much lost on what to do.

Spy nodded, looked away. Seemed to chew on his words for a moment. “And I take back what I said,” he added, quieter now. “You are not someone that could be easily replaced on this team. You play a very important role here, and… you are good at what you do, and we are all very fortunate to have you here on our team.”

Scout outright didn’t reply to that, visibly at a loss for words.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Spy finally said, glanced between Scout and Sniper, walked away from them and towards the rest of the team, a stiffness to his posture.

Sniper watched him go, saw the way the rest of the team glanced at Spy, saw Spy starting to talk quietly to Heavy and Demo, the latter of whom glanced back towards the two of them. Then he looked at Scout, hoping Scout didn’t see the overt way they were interacting, and saw that Scout very much wasn’t paying attention to that. Instead, he had his head ducked, and was starting to sniffle, eyes welling up.

“Wait, Bilby, what’s wrong?” Sniper asked quickly, a hand on his shoulder, ducking to try and get a good look at his expression, confusion and concern mounting.

“No, I, it’s just—“ He sniffled again and swallowed hard, hurriedly wiping off his eyes with his forearm as a few tears started falling. He took a few seconds to compose himself, and bent further forward when he cracked again. “I just, I think that was the nicest thing any of the guys have ever said to me.”

Sniper took a moment or two to process that, a series of complicated emotions rising in his chest, before he simply moved to pull Scout into a tight hug, his own throat becoming tight.

His gaze rose to the rest of the team, most of whom seemed to be watching them with some amount of concern and confusion. He flashed them a thumbs up as covertly as possible, and they relaxed, returning to what they had been doing.

They all became much nicer to Scout, still occasionally ragging on him, but largely dialing it back to a normal level, to the level they gave just about everyone on the team rather than him being the common target. And it took a while—a long while—but Scout seemed to brighten, straighten, smile more, relax more. And god, was Sniper happy to see it. _God_ was he happy to see it.


	40. Sniper/Scout, Soulmate1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: I absolutely love your writing! If you're taking requests, could you maybe do a speeding bullet soulmate au?"
> 
> thanks a lot pal! and sure thing, i’ve actually had something half-finished in my drafts for soulmate!au for a while. in this AU, it’s the classic “your first words to your soulmate are written on your wrist”, with a minor twist–if your soulmate’s words are on your left hand, that means you will need to speak first. if it’s on the right, then your soulmate is the one who has to speak first before you say your words. this adds a little bit of clarity in-universe, since you can see your phrase is something simple like “how can i help you” and if you’re speaking second you can shoot them back with something buckwild. it can lead to people being more or less extroverted–knowing your line comes second means you can say whatever without being worried that it’ll be written on some poor sap’s skin, and knowing your line comes first means you don’t have that luxury. also limitations like “must be speaking exclusively to that one person” (unless polyamory), “can’t be through a phone or writing”, and “must be identifiable as the person” (do with that what you please). anyways, i like soulmate AUs and put a lot of thought into them.  
actual fic is below the cut, and again, you’re very kind]]

_”Are you doing alright, mate?”_

To be honest, that wasn’t the worst line that Jeremy could’ve gotten, but fuckin’ seriously.

It wasn’t as bad as his brother Joey, he had “Your shoe’s untied” on the left, and Petey got the nightmare scenario and just got “Hey, how’s your day?” on the right, but the thing that really frustrated him was that it wasn’t even the reaction phrase. That was the _opening_ phrase, meaning they had to say that to him first before he could respond with his own line, and if they were asking if he was doing alright that had to mean something bad was gonna happen and he’d probably look stupid in front of his soulmate and not have a good response or whatever because he’d just, like, fallen in the harbor or something.

Turned out, by the time Jeremy was twelve, he was starting to find out that bad things happening to him was gonna be a consistent issue. He had bad luck, worse than all his brothers combined, and over the course of all that time he got an awful lot of “Are you okay, dude?” and “Are you alright?” from a lot of people. But none of them ever got it exactly right, missing the crucial few words, nobody ever saying “mate”. Nobody ever asking him that in a voice that felt dark orange.

“Y’know,” his Ma said to him one day when he was sulking, twenty-two and still soulmate-less and with a terrible time at job hunting to boot considering his most recent cast, luckily on his left arm so he could still glare at his mark. “It does have a hint at least.”

“That I’m gonna be a total klutz forever?” Jeremy sulked.

“That your soulmate isn’t gonna be an American, sweetheart,” his Ma corrected gently. “He’s probably gonna be British, or Irish, something like that. They’re the only ones who say “mate”, right?”

“Didn’t you also think my dad was gonna be a Canadian?” he asked suspiciously.

“Honey, I’m not magic, I don’t know everything. I thought it was unrealistic to think it would be someone actually from France,” she said, a little haughty.

She was one of the lucky people to get a really specific phrase, in a language that wasn’t her own no less. It was in French, and when he’d asked as a kid what it said, she’d laughed and said it meant “I promise I had a much more intelligent line to say, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

She always said his dad had died, and worn the traditional covering to show that someone’s soulmate was dead, to hide where the words had gone black. But once or twice he’d glimpsed her wrist, and to be honest, the words looked more navy blue.

“Why the heck am I gonna talk to a British person?” Jeremy asked, sulking again.

“World works in mysterious ways, J-Bear,” his Ma shrugged.

She was right. Because a few months later, he was in a particularly terrible situation, and he received a phone call asking if he wanted a job.

* * *

_”I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you.”_

It hadn’t shown up until he was four years old, which Mick’s parents had a bloody field day with, and once they were good and tired of dealing with that conundrum they moved right along to address the fact that in reply to whatever their son was going to say, he was going to promptly be threatened.

Great.

He ended up baking under the sun just like everyone else in his god-forsaken country, which only made the bright, cherry-red phrase stand out all the better. His mum _tried_ to be supportive, honest she did, but even getting bullied at school every other day never led to him finding anyone, and she wasn’t all that surprised when at age nineteen he packed up the bare essentials and left home without a word.

He had an idea in his head. He’d heard before of people, terrible people, who used the idea of soulmate to do… bad things. To manipulate people, to make them stay in bad relationships because they thought this one person could and would solve all their problems. And if his soulmate’s first words to him were a threat…

He’d admit if he was asked that he was a lonely person. He didn’t ever seem to fit with anyone. Nobody ever seemed to understand what he meant once he started actually talking, being honest. And he didn’t know if he would have the strength to get out of a bad situation if he was promised up front that this person would understand him. He was pretty sure he would put up with a lot of bad things just for the sake of genuine connection.

So he decided he wouldn’t ever find his soulmate. He’d go off to do hunting and tracking in fuckall nowhere and nobody would ever bother him and he’d never need to deal with a soulmate. He didn’t need one. He’d be fine alone.

When he eventually turned to killing people for money, some part of him deep down wondered if he was just getting too lonely and giving in to what fate had in store for him. If becoming an assassin was the most pathetic, fucked-up bid for someone’s love that had ever happened in history. People did threaten to kill him a lot in that line of work. And more often, people actually tried.

Eventually he got a job offer out in America, more consistent pay and all for the same job, less moving around required, and he took it. He was getting up there in years, and he had a feeling that if he hadn’t found his soulmate by the time he hit thirty, he never would.

* * *

Jeremy got a new name: Scout. And his new coworkers—“teammates”, as the very pretty lady who unfortunately didn’t ask if he was doing alright had specified to him—were from all over the place. And he’d had high hopes for a minute as he realized one of his teammates was Scottish, but when he spoke face-to-face with the guy he’d instead greeted him with a cheerful “Pleasure to meet you, lad!” and his reply of “Yo, so you’re the Demoman?” had elicited exactly no response, so that was a bust.

He spoke to the Pyro, as briefly as possible since they freaked him out, but they’d similarly not seemed to react to what he first said to them, and neither had any of the rest of the team. Hell, the Heavy had outright brushed him off up front and the Sniper had given him exactly one up-and-down before he’d left entirely.

So cool. Great. New job with people who didn’t care. Nice.

And he found out more and more as time passed that they very much didn’t care. Most of the team could hardly tolerate him for more than ten minutes at a time, Spy he could barely put up with for two sentences, and even though he eventually got to be better friends with Pyro, and Engie eventually started putting up with him more, they still got annoyed with him pretty quickly. Pyro basically ignored him once they reached their limit, and Engie would essentially kick him out of his workshop.

And… to be honest, he didn’t feel totally comfortable talking to them about certain stuff. He felt a little bit like he’d get laughed at. And his once-every-two-weeks phone call home sometimes wasn’t enough to deal with various stresses and he usually was more interested in hearing their news than complaining anyways.

He didn’t know why he went out to the watchtower. Maybe because he was out for a run and it just happened to be in his line of sight. Maybe because it occurred to him that Sniper could keep a secret, wouldn’t tell the guys about whatever he ended up talking about. Maybe because he felt like he didn’t really have any other options.

Anyways, he ended up climbing the watchtower, asking Sniper if it would bug him if Scout sat around and hung out for a while. Sniper didn’t reply, just glancing at Scout over his shoulder briefly before returning to his scope. And then Scout made it exactly three minutes before he started in on talking. “I dunno I just think it’s funny that Spy thinks I’m rude when he’s always the one starting shit for no reason—“

And Sniper didn’t interrupt him, didn’t say anything, didn’t chase him off. He sat there, staring down his scope, occasionally pausing to take a drink of his coffee, for about two hours. Two hours of Scout just talking, thinking out loud.

It was nice. So nice that Scout cut himself off, eventually said goodbye and left the tower again, sure that Sniper would get tired of him and he’d never be allowed back up there again.

It became a weekly thing, every Monday Scout would go up there and talk to Sniper. Talk _at_ Sniper, more like. And Sniper would listen.

One of the days, Scout said something, something he couldn’t even remember, because it was overshadowed by the thing that immediately followed it—Sniper laughing.

He’d never heard Sniper laugh before, he didn’t think. Not in the real way, anyhow. Sniper didn’t talk much. He’d occasionally mention something over the comms, and once or twice Scout heard him cheering along with the rest of the team when they won a match, but overall, he was a man of few words. So getting him to laugh…

He thought about it a lot.

* * *

Sniper didn’t entirely get why Scout started talking to him.

He tried so hard—_so hard_—to be left alone. He put on a scowl and wore the brim of his hat low and carried his knife off the clock and didn’t say hello or goodbye. He wanted to be left alone. He deserved to be left alone.

Scout, apparently, didn’t notice. And halfway through Sniper trying to figure out what to say to get the kid to leave, he started telling some story about his brothers back home, and…

He never got around to it. He never… got around to telling him to leave. And once Scout had that foothold, had that… constant nature, that consistency, once Sniper knew to expect him every Monday two hours after the team dinner or half an hour before sunset—whichever came first—he found himself…

God damn it. _Enjoying_ Scout’s company. He liked some of the phrases Scout used. He talked in an interesting way. It was pleasant to listen to. And he was honest, uncomfortably honest at times. He told Sniper about all sorts of things that he figured it was safe to say nobody else knew about.

He talked about his family. His mum. His dad, who died, and then later he corrected himself to say his dad, who disappeared, who probably left, words in navy and not in black. He talked about growing up in the bad part of town, about never being allowed to walk home from school without at least one of his older brothers there until he was eight, when he started carrying a knife on him because sometimes none of his brothers showed up for him, until he was twelve, when he just started running there and back every day after baseball practice to save the trouble. About shoplifting, about getting a job delivering newspapers the second he was legally allowed to, about older brothers going in to work sick and Ma working two jobs to try and support them all when they got too sick for work, too sick for anything for a while. About what he did with his paycheck—he kept some pocket change for himself, to buy records sometimes, or posters, or snack foods for when dinner sucked, or fast food or drinks at the bar when he had time on the weekends. The rest of it—every goddamn penny—went back home. One day, maybe his Ma would never have to work again.

He wanted to tell Scout about his own sad life story. Climbing up the tree outside school and throwing rocks at the bullies who chased him, starting to skip classes and smoke towards the end of his schooling just to try and look a little more intimidating. About his dad scoffing at him when he tended to use a gun to chase off predators from their flock of sheep instead of fighting them hand-to-hand like a good Australian. About running away from all of his problems, and how killing animals, especially people, seemed to be the only thing he was ever any good at, and how sometimes that really did bother him, a lot.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t convince himself that Scout cared, somehow. Visits jumped up to twice a week, Monday and Thursday, same time. It was hot for a while, and he went into town one Sunday to pick up two cases of beer, hauled a cooler up into the watchtower, and left three beers next to where Scout sat and three next to himself about ten minutes before the kid showed up. When it started getting cold at night, he brought up his own quilt like he always did, but brought up the spare as well, left that on what he’d mentally started thinking of as Scout’s Crate. Scout drank the beers, and used the blanket, and would talk for his two hours and then say goodbye and not mention anything to Sniper when they went out to battle the next day.

It…

He didn’t like that he enjoyed it so much. He didn’t like looking forward to it, didn’t like perking up when he heard the ladder rattling, didn’t like hanging on to every word and the increasing frequency at which Scout was making him laugh. He didn’t like how much harder it got every time to bite his lip and hold back from chiming in.

He was a killer, he reminded himself. A hermit from absolutely nowhere Australia who didn’t deserve the company of other people. This was the best thing that could’ve happened to him, and he couldn’t push his luck. If he pushed his luck, then he’d drive Scout away and be left alone again. Scout only talked to him because he was quiet anyways, because he was a mystery. Remove the mystery, and the draw would be gone, and he’d be all alone again. Already this was selfish; he should just shut up and be grateful.

He stared down his scope and drank his coffee and was grateful.

* * *

A bad day at work, followed by a bad weekend, had Scout hesitating at the base of the watchtower.

Some part of him was rational, and knew he was being ridiculous. But another, stronger part of him couldn’t seem to make his feet move, was repeating a steady mantra to him.

_Not wanted._

Sniper didn’t like him. Sniper didn’t want him around. Sniper was just too polite to turn him away, too nice, and was annoyed with his constant talking and wished he would go away but didn’t have the courage, didn’t want to be rude. He wasn’t wanted. Or maybe Sniper just pitied him, maybe Sniper just heard his assorted sob stories and thought, man, poor little idiot kid, might as well set out a blanket for him and let him talk. Maybe Sniper was collecting everything he said for blackmail.

The worst idea to run through his head: maybe Sniper had never been listening to him in the first place.

If Sniper wanted him around, he would’ve said something, right?

Scout didn’t go up into the watchtower that day, or the following Thursday. He didn’t bother looking for Sniper in battle, sure that Sniper would be ignoring him the same way he always did, pretending he didn’t exist the same way he always did.

When he went to the store that weekend, hoping to pick up some chips and soda, he found himself staring at a six-pack of beer. He didn’t even particularly like beer, usually, he preferred other drinks. But he was looking at this six-pack of beer, and he wound up buying it.

It wasn’t some cheap garbage, it was craft beer. It was more expensive.

He drank exactly three of the six and tried not to think about it.

* * *

Scout was gone. He never showed up. Sniper ended up getting so freaked out about it that he went to check the Medbay, sure that something bad had happened. Medic was there, working on something bloody, but not Scout. And Scout wasn’t in the workshop either, or the workout room, or the rec room. He got a lot of strange looks from his teammates as he asked around. For some, it was the most he’d spoken to them in months.

He was halfway to Scout’s room when he realized he was probably being strange, manic. Scout was allowed to not want to come visit him. He wasn’t offering anything. In all the time—six months, he realized, they’d been doing this for six months—that Scout had visited, all he really had to gain was Sniper occasionally humming or laughing, and exactly three beers on the hotter days and a tobacco-scented blanket in the winter. There was no reason for Sniper to expect him to show up on the little schedule that had been established. He started to feel silly.

Then he didn’t show up on Thursday either, and…

He felt worried, of course he felt worried, obviously he felt worried. One of the only good things to ever happen to him, and it just stopped showing up one day. And he wanted it back. God, he wanted it back. Two days and he already felt more lonely than he ever felt in his life. Maybe having felt even the smallest glimmer of companionship had made him soft, but damn it, he wanted to feel it again.

He made a decision.

* * *

Scout was lacing up his shoes before battle on Monday when a pair of boots stopped in front of him. This wasn’t strange. What was strange was that it wasn’t the calm amble of Engie, the sturdy stride of Heavy, the confident stomp of Soldier, or the crisp stride of Medic. No, it was an awkward shuffle. A rough clearing of a throat. He looked up, and it was Sniper.

He froze up. “Uh,” he said. “Hi.”

Sniper was looking at him. That was strange. In something like 95% of their interactions, Sniper was facing away from him down a scope, occasionally viewed in profile as he took a sip of beer or coffee, depending on the weather. And the other times were in battle itself, both of them otherwise preoccupied. But now Sniper was looking at him, thumbs shoved in his front pockets. After a second he moved to take off his sunglasses and immediately glanced off to one side, tapping them against his palm.

It looked like a nervous tick. This was strange. Sniper was never like this. Scout was confused.

Sniper glanced towards the rest of the team, all a short ways away, chatting amongst themselves at various volumes. When he spoke, his voice was rough and low and quiet. If Scout had to describe it, he would call it a dark orange.

“Are you doing alright, mate?” he asked, tone hesitant.

Scout remained frozen. Stared. Stared.

“It’s just,” Sniper continued, stumbling awkwardly with his words, unable to make further eye contact with Scout. “You haven’t come around in a while, and I suppose I just got… worried, that something happened—“

Scout got to his feet, whirled around, and angrily started digging through his locker, jaw clenched. He eventually pulled forth a pocket knife and angrily started ripping the grip tape from his right hand. He didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” Sniper said quickly, holding up his hands, taking a step back. “I, I just thought it was odd is all, I didn’t know if—“

Scout silenced him by holding his now-bare wrist directly in Sniper’s line of sight, a few inches from his face, Sniper flinching back minutely at the motion. When he realized what he was looking at, his eyes widened. He looked at Scout. Scout looked at him.

“I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you,” Scout said calmly, matter-of-factly, and Sniper had never thought about it before, but he would absolutely describe Scout’s voice as a bright red. Shaking hands moved to undo his watch, and he held his own wrist, the left, out for Scout to see.

Silence for a few seconds. “I—“ Sniper started to say, but was cut off by Scout.

“I cannot _believe_ that you’ve never once since I’ve met you _ever_ talked one-on-one with me. You’ve never said a fuckin’ _word_ to me, Snipes,” Scout said, more than a little pissed off.

“I didn’t realize,” Sniper defended, a little weakly. “I thought… I thought I had.”

“Man, how many people can say they fuckin’ monologued to their soulmate for hours and hours before meeting them, huh?” Scout asked, hands on his hips now.

“I’m sorry,” was all Sniper could think to say.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Scout declared, glaring at Sniper hard. “I’m gonna meet you after work like usual at the watchtower, and you’re takin’ me to go get pizza, and I’m gonna eat pizza while you talk about yourself. You’ve got about—“

He did some math in his head.

“Somethin’ like sixty hours or so of talkin’ to do to make it even,” he decided. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Sniper agreed weakly. Scout moved to sit down and start lacing his shoes up again, but before he could get to it, Sniper spoke again. “I’m… glad you’re okay.”

Scout looked back up at him. The sudden influx of nervous honesty on Sniper’s face made him feel surprisingly guilty. “Sorry. I just… got all up in my own head. I figured I was probably pissing you off, so I stopped going.” A pause. “I wasn’t pissing you off?”

“No,” Sniper replied. “Not at all. I… liked… having you around.”

Scout fought hard against the smile threatening to take hold. “Good to know,” he finally said.

“And I should’ve said something earlier,” Sniper continued, words flowing forth in a rush. “I should’ve told you, I should’ve—let you know. I really should’ve.”

“Well,” Scout shrugged, and finished tying his laces up, and stood to face Sniper head-on. “Now you told me.”

A pause between them, Sniper clearly working very hard to maintain eye contact.

“It doesn’t have to be pizza,” Scout amended, picking at his remaining hand’s worth of grip tape. “It can be anything. I just wanna hang out, like, away from base.”

“Like a date?” Sniper asked, slowly, hesitantly.

“Sure,” Scout shrugged.

A pause again. “Pizza’s fine,” Sniper seemed to decide.

“Alright,” Scout said, and smiled at him. “Alright. I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah,” Sniper agreed, and took his cue to walk away. He stood off to one side of the rest of the team, moving to take a drink of his coffee. His wrist caught his eye, and he looked over the words again, and for the first time in his life, they didn’t bring him dread. They brought him hope.


	41. Spy/Ma, Spy&Scout, Soulmate2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["guilty-crunch asked: after finishing your sniperscout soulmate fic i thought. what if the discussion of soulmark phrases came up after battle and spy accidentally let the one his soulmate said to him slip out and scout just. "... my mom said thats what she said to her soulmate." and then basically almost murders spy for being a clown"
> 
> literally anyone on earth: (comes into my inbox and throws out an idea)  
me, writing the idea out far more elaborately than needed: aw geez aw fuck i can’t control my hand suddenly aw man that’s weird  
(short spy!dad fic below the cut)]]

“So who’s the poor unlucky sap that got stuck with you?” Scout asked out of the blue one day, sitting across from him as the team dug into the meal of the day.

“Excuse me?” Spy asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Y’know,” Scout said, tapping at his own wrist. “I mean, you’re pretty fuckin’ old, you had to have met yours by now, huh?”

Spy’s expression closed off. “I met my soulmate young and she died a very long time ago,” he said flatly, and turned his eyes back to his meal, assuming the conversation to be over.

“That’s not true,” Medic said calmly from next to him.

Spy stiffened. Scout blinked. “And how,” Spy asked, “would _you_ know that?”

“Your mark still has color, do you take me for an idiot?” Medic asked flatly. “You took off your glove for your medical assessment when you arrived here.”

“And why exactly would you _tell people that?”_ Spy stressed, gritting his teeth.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Medic said airily. “Why is it that the orders for birdseed that I keep placing keep getting cancelled? There are many mysteries in this world of ours, Herr Spy.”

Spy continued to shoot daggers at him for a few seconds, only changing his attention to then glare at Heavy when the large man started chuckling from the other side of Medic.

“That trick wasn’t gonna work on me anyways, Spy,” Scout said flatly. “I’ve heard that lie before.”

“You’ve what?” Spy asked, baffled.

“My Ma used to feed me that same bullshit when I was a kid,” he elaborated, looking a little bitter. “You probably just got walked out on too, except for being a total douchebag.”

“You’re wrong,” Spy said, fist clenched, extremely tempted to take his knife from his jacket and end this conversation. The only issue was that he was pretty sure Scout’s arterial spray would get into their food. He considered it anyways. “I’m the one who had to go elsewhere, and it was for a very important reason. We maintain an amount of contact. Any further extremely personal questions, or will you let me eat my meal in peace?”

“What kinda line did you get anyhow?” Scout asked.

Spy sighed, rolled his eyes. He didn’t even have to look at his wrist to remember the words, in a lovely, vibrant, lavender-pink, looping scrawl. “It says “Hey there, how are you doing tonight, handsome?” on my right hand. She was a waitress, I was sitting alone,” he replied, tone still dry.

Silence for a few seconds. Scout was staring at him. Spy had anticipated being made fun of, or some other benign yet annoying thing. Instead, Scout’s expression seemed to be darkening.

“That’s weird,” he said slowly. “My Ma always said her line was somethin’ like that.”

Spy’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is that right?”

“Yeah. And, uh, the line she got back was in French.”

“That’s not all that strange. You’re from some big city on the East Coast, plenty of foreigners,” Spy said flippantly.

“Yeah,” Scout said. “I’m from—“

“New York,” Spy finished in the same moment Scout said “Boston”.

Scout looked more than a little offended. “What the fuck, you think I’m from New York?” he scoffed.

“All you big city Americans sound the same to me,” Spy said, playing it off, looking bored to cover up the panic starting to well in his chest. “And they are practically the same thing.”

“Alright, I’m gonna go ahead and summarize how I feel about that particular statement with a solid _fuck off_. And anyways, no, I’m from Boston. Completely different.”

“And what exactly was the phrase your mother had?” Spy asked, very much scared of the answer.

“Some French bullshit, but in English it’s somethin’ dumb like… like, “I was gonna say somethin’ real smart, but now I don’t remember it”, somethin’ like that.”

“Or perhaps “I promise I had a much more intelligent line to say, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it”? Does that sound right?” Spy asked, throat dry.

Scout stared again. “Yeah. Exactly. Word for word.”

Complete, dead silence.

Now, you’d think that after so many years being a spy, over two decades as an agent of espionage—dear lord, he was going on three, actually—he would be able to control his expression in all situations. However, based on the fact that he was pretty sure he had exactly zero blood remaining in his face and his eyes were wide as saucers, you would be wrong.

“You son of a bitch,” Scout managed.

Spy cloaked and fled the room as complete chaos erupted.


	42. Scout&Demo&Sniper, Rough Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["x-efflorescence-x asked: Scout's been having a rough week because everyone seems to be too busy for him, even though the team is on vacation. At first he's bored, but as the days continue, he finds himself angry. But soon he just feels awful lonely, desperately craving the attention/affection he's been lacking. Finally he goes to Demo and Sniper, who are working on an important project. They tell him they're busy for the time being, but are suddenly alarmed when he breaks down sobbing. They do their best to soothe him."
> 
> friendship fic is best fic end of story. (fic below the cut, no warnings)]]

“Hey Hardhat, think we could—“

“Now’s not a good time, Scooter. You run along now.”

“Yo, Snipes, you busy?”

“Yeah, actually. Got things to do. Sorry, mate.”

“Mumbles, what’s up?”

“Mmm-phm. Bmm!”

“Demo, what are you up to, man?”

“Defusing a bomb, lad, best you go on and leg it. Probably to the other end of the base. And maybe find some headphones.”

“Hey Soldier—“

“Not now, Cadet! I am currently engaged in a battle—_of wills_. Private Munches once again has fleas and they are _very contagious_. It is in your best interest to retreat now!”

“Hey Heavy—“

“Heavy is welding. Leetle Scout should leave.”

“Hey Doc—?”

“Nein. No, I don’t need to know what you were going to ask. I do not care.”

“Spy—?”

“Clearly you’re desperate if you’re trying to talk to _me_ to find something to do.”

Scout puffed out a breath of air, slumping. “Look, I dunno either, okay? We get the first real break for the first time in like two months and all the guys still sit around acting like they have better shit to do.”

“Have you considered that they’ve also been looking forward to a break and have things they have been _saving_ for that break?” Spy asked, not even looking up from his newspaper.

“I mean, maybe. But c’mon, it’s ridiculous! I’m not asking to like, go do a whole thing all day, I just wanna hang out a little bit!”

“A shame that I am busy,” Spy said, sighing in faux disappointment.

“With what?”

“_Anything_ else.” He waved Scout off. “Go on. Get a hobby or something, something besides pestering all of the rest of us like some kind of annoying dog.”

Scout sulked, leaving and heading back to his own room.

The rest of their first day off, Scout ended up mostly messing around in his room. He flicked through some comics, got bored, flicked through some other comics, got bored, paced around for a while listening to a record before he lost interest in that too and wound up trying to take a nap. About five minutes after he laid down he realized that was gonna be a no-go, and he ended up so frustrated that he cleaned his whole room, right down to vacuuming under his bed. He was up until about two in the morning cleaning and putting stuff away before he realized what time it was and tried to lay down to go to sleep.

He finished cleaning after he went and grabbed breakfast for himself—kitchen entirely empty—and then was left standing in his room, looking around aimlessly for anything else to do. He rearranged his whole little bookshelf, sorting his comics by franchise then by hero then by issue.

He got lunch early. Kitchen empty. Halls quiet, only the sounds of machinery in the distance to tell him there was anyone else around.

By the time he finished eating, he was pretty much desperate for something to do, so he did rounds again to ask the team if anyone needed help with anything. He got a pretty harsh dressing-down from Engie about interrupting him when he was focusing hard on work, very important things. Soldier rambled and ranted at him for about twenty minutes, at which point Scout realized Soldier was barely even talking to him, and was mostly just talking to himself. He tried to track down Spy for an hour to try and ask to borrow his car so he could go into town and find literally anything to do, but the guy wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and he eventually gave up. He got desperate enough for something to do that he even went over to the infirmary, and was pretty sure he would be roped into some dumb experiment or something, but it turned out that Medic was stitching something into Heavy, so even that was a no-go.

So he just went back into his room again.

It had been kinda nice at first, having a place all to himself. As a kid he could count on his fingers how many times he was left alone in any capacity, and then as a teen he found peace and quiet to be pretty scarce. But then his brothers all graduated, and started moving out one by one, and he was left there pretty much alone, just him and Ma. And even then he was constantly surrounded by people, the walls thin in their apartment.

But then he moved out west for the job, and suddenly it was really freakishly quiet. And it kind of blew his mind at first, the quiet. He appreciated it. Especially considering most of the time all he had to do was go in the common room to find someone to talk to. He realized, with his pool of people he could potentially talk to so limited, that he was kind of a clingy person, needed to talk to people a lot.

He got lonely quick.

He remembered after he graduated, splitting up laundry into a once-a-week thing instead of a once-every-two-weeks thing just for the sake of having more time around other people, even if he wasn’t talking to them. Ma kinda got in his case sometimes for how much he would go get food somewhere besides at home, but he kinda had to, kinda needed to talk to someone else on the daily or else he started going stir-crazy. Started feeling bad and gross, started in with having all kinds of dumb ideas running through his head.

Mostly ideas like, maybe the team wasn’t that busy and they just made excuses and tried to seem busy because they didn’t like him. Ideas like, well he already knew that they didn’t like him, he was a lot younger than most of them and a hell of a lot stupider and they called him loud and annoying pretty much on the daily. Ideas like, none of them ever really talked to him besides during battle, and maybe they were just trying to be polite when they did talk to him, and when was the last time anyone asked how he was doing? Ideas like, maybe they really did just hate him. Ideas like, maybe a lot of people hated him. Ideas like, if literally everyone he talked to on a regular basis—all eight people—didn’t like him enough to hang out with him for a little while when they got their first break in forever…

Ideas like, did he really not have _any_ friends? Ideas like, wasn’t that pretty pathetic? Ideas like, well, if he didn’t have any friends, if nobody liked him, did that maybe mean that he deserved it?

Scout stayed up staring out off into space and occasionally getting up and pacing around until about two in the morning.

* * *

Scout was up early the next day, and paced for just about the hour and a half in anticipation for his usual call home—once a week unless he said he wouldn’t be able to the week prior—before giving up on waiting and just calling early.

It got picked up in the middle of the fourth ring, and by then, Scout had already tangled the phone cord in his fidgeting.

“Hello?” came an immediately familiar voice, and he relaxed.

“Hey, Ma,” he greeted.

“J-Bear!” she practically gasped. “Honey, you’re two hours early. Why are you callin’, shouldn’t you be at work?”

“We’re on a break while some maintenence stuff is happening,” Scout explained, starting to untangle the cord. “And, y’know. I’m wicked bored.”

“All caught up on chores, then?” Ma asked, already the warning note in her voice that meant he might be in for a little bit of deserved nagging.

“Yeah, actually. Cleaned my room finally, all good on laundry, organized some stuff, all that,” he replied. “I was gonna do groceries, but my usual ride places is, uh… ghosting on me a little.”

“Well, are you getting enough to eat?” Ma asked next, sounding worried.

“Oh, no, yeah, I am,” he said quickly. “I’m just, y’know. I gotta eat like, canned beans and stuff like that for a while.”

“As long as you’re eating,” Ma said firmly.

And Scout went to say something else, to start going on about how he was so annoyed with his teammates, see, because they were all being total assholes, right? And then Ma would say something to him, and he’d feel better, because every time he told Ma about something that was going wrong he always walked away feeling better.

But Ma started talking again.

“Honey, I’m really sorry,” she started in, and it was clear that she meant it, and Scout’s heart dropped. “But I can’t really talk for long. I had plans today, and I’m already running late.”

He couldn’t speak for a moment due to the fact that his heart had suddenly jumped into his throat. “But Ma,” he said, brows furrowing, “what about the phone call?”

A short sigh. “I’m a little glad you called early, actually, that means I can ask you—would it be alright if we didn’t have our chat this week? It’s just that your older brother is finally stopping back in town for a little while—“

“Ma, which _one?”_ he asked with a laugh, managing to fit some humor into his voice even as he forced it not to wobble.

“Oldest, sweetie. Anyways, I’m headed out to go meet him for lunch actually, and then we’re gonna come back to the house and chat and all, your niece is real excited to meet the cat, and I’d feel terrible if I left to go talk on the phone for an hour when I have guests over—“

“Yeah, Ma,” Scout said, bracing himself to lie through his teeth to his mother. “It’s totally fine. No worries. We’ll just talk next week, it’s no big deal.”

“You’re a lifesaver, sweetheart,” Ma said, and meant it, and Scout winced. “I love you, we’ll talk next week for sure, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Love you too,” he said. And he listened for the sound of the phone being put down, and he sighed, breath shaky on the exhale. He only put the phone down when it started to beep at him, and then continued to fiddle with the cord for a long while.

* * *

“The problem is that to send a bullet that far and that straight, the force needed is fairly strong. If you tried to fire this round out of a proper rifle, it might just explode in the barrel, mate,” Sniper explained, turning over the bullet in his fingers.

“So we fire one to test it,” Demo shrugged.

“Not out of my gun we won’t,” Sniper replied, raising an eyebrow. “If you’re aiming to send explosives long distances, best to just stick to rockets or canons or the like. Biggest boom you’d get shooting an explosive round like this anywhere over a hundred meters or so would just be a firecracker. It would just be distracting.”

“Distracting. Now _there’s_ an idea,” Demo nodded, starting to scribble something down on the paper in front of him. “Now here’s a concept, lad; smoke rounds.”

Sniper considered that for a few seconds, tapping his own pencil against the side of the table. “As in proper smoke like a flare, or as in just some sort of, er, blocked visibility?”

“Either,” Demo shrugged.

“Again, anything too flammable would go off in the gun. Maybe some sort of,” he said, gestured loosely for a moment. “Maybe just a round full of some sort of fine powder that would go up when the casing shatters against a wall? Hell of a heavy round I think, probably need a special gun for it. What sort of powder like that wouldn’t be flammable?”

“Well, _technically_ speaking, everything is flammable, if we want to get down to what the word flammable means,” Demo replied, pausing in his own writing. “But there’s a few things that might work. A good powder for that might even just be potassium bicarbonate, that’s easy enough to come by.”

“Why’s that?” Sniper asked.

“Well, most commonly it’s used in fire extinguishers,” Demo shrugged. “I imagine that could really do a number on someone else’s guns or machinery, as well. And I wouldn’t need to put in a budget request to our boss over it, I could just snag the spare canister we keep in the kitchen.”

“Tavish, how often do I tell you you’re a bloody genius?” Sniper asked, watching Demo scribble down some formulas with practiced ease.

“On the weekly, must be,” Demo replied.

“Might end up going over the regular amount during this project, because you’re an absolute bloody genius.”

“Thankin’ you kindly, lad,” Demo said, flashed him a grin.

A knock at the door to Demo’s work space. Sniper got up first, moving to open it.

“Oh. Hey, Snipes,” Scout said, looking surprised to see Sniper answering the door.

“G’day,” Sniper greeted, a little confused. He stepped aside to let Scout in, slightly befuddled.

“Hey, Demo,” Scout greeted, saw the spread of different papers and bullets across the table. “Uh, you guys workin’ on somethin’ in here? You busy?”

“Very,” Demo agreed, stretching his arms up over his head, back aching from being hunched over paper for a bit too long. “You need somethin’?”

“I, I mean, nah. Not really. Just wanted to see if you—uh, either of you guys—were free is all,” Scout shrugged, putting his hands into his pockets.

“We’re working on a project,” Sniper replied, moving to go take his own seat again.

“Trying to figure out the mechanics of a new kind of sniping round,” Demo elaborated. “We’ve just moved on to the part that’s all math and chemistry and physics and the like.”

“Yeah?” Scout asked, a little fidgety, a little awkward.

“Yeah,” Demo nodded. Picked up his pencil again. “Gonna be awfully boring, I imagine.”

“Especially since you don’t really have the head for this sort of thing,” Sniper said, a little jokingly, glancing up at Scout. “Might ask to use you for target practice with it later though, if you’re still bored around then.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mundy,” Demo chided, then grinned. “Lad’s far too skinny. Even a marksman like you’d never be able to hit him, aye?”

Sniper laughed, and Demo laughed. And then they looked over at Scout, and Scout wasn’t laughing. He was just stood there, shifting nervously. Not the same kind of nervous as he got when he’d poked and prodded at Heavy a little too long and finally just got hefted up and put somewhere high up that he’d take a while to get down from, or the same kind of nervous as when Spy pulled his knife out and started flipping it open and closed during an argument, because both of those had an amount of “do it, I dare you” in them, an amount of “bet you won’t” in them.

But this time, Scout just looked tense. A little too wide-eyed, a little too avoiding-eye-contact. His chest rose and fell in a breath that looked far too deliberate and therefore awkward.

They both stopped laughing, just looking at him. “Lad, something the matter?” Demo asked, expression falling.

“Yeah, you awright, mate?” Sniper asked, turning in his chair to regard Scout.

Scout removed his hands from his pockets, fiddling for a few seconds. Then he looked up at Demo, then at Sniper, then at Demo again. He opened his mouth to say something.

He burst into tears.

Sniper startled, and Demo’s eye widened. They looked at each other, Demo largely with concern and Sniper with open alarm as Scout hunched forward, burying his face in his hands and crying openly.

A brief nonverbal argument took place, then Sniper was standing, moving over.

“Scout, mate,” he started gently, awkwardly, and after a second put a cautious hand on Scout’s shoulder. “Scout, what happened? What’s wrong?”

Scout moved to cling to Sniper’s shirt, tears redoubling, and Sniper stiffened, freezing up, eyes going a little wide. He shot a look at Demo that could not have more clearly read as “help me”.

Demo quickly rose, moving over. He put a hand on Scout’s shoulder to test the waters, and when Scout didn’t react poorly, he pulled the shorter man off of Sniper and into a hug. Scout crumpled into it immediately. Sniper settled for standing just to one side, patting Scout on the back once or twice.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing Scout managed, and Demo shook his head, hugging all the tighter.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, lad. It’s alright. What’s got you so blue?” he asked, tone calm and level.

“Just—just, a lot, okay?” Scout managed, and Demo nodded, tucking Scout’s head under his chin after a second. “It’s just, everyone’s all busy doin’ important shit, and I’m just—just sitting around, and I wanna help, but everyone keeps telling me I’m bugging them and bein’ a fuckin’ nuisance, but I’m really bored and it’s really lonely out here and I—I miss Boston and I miss my family and I’m fuckin’ tired of eating whatever garbage we keep stocked in the kitchen but I can’t go into town because Spy’s being a dick and I can’t fuckin’ find him to borrow his keys, and I’m just…” He burrowed in closer to Demo, taking a shaky breath. “And now I’m bothering you guys while you’re working on something that actually matters.”

“You’re not,” Demo said right away, squeezing him tighter for a moment. “No expiration date on maths, aye?”

“And you’re not a bother,” Sniper added, tone dripping sincerity. He paused for a second. “It’s alright. I’m not going to be upset with you for talking to me.”

“Snipes, you and I both know I’m fuckin’ annoying,” Scout all but snapped, only lacking venom because he didn’t seem to have the energy for it.

“No,” Sniper replied, and exhaled. “You don’t annoy me. I like having you around. You… and Demo s’well I think,” he added, looking over at the Scotsman before glancing back away again. “You’re the best mates I’ve ever bloody had, awright?”

“Can’t imagine there was much competition for that, ya feckin’ hermit,” Demo said dryly, arching an eyebrow.

“Stuff it, Tavish,” Sniper scoffed, flushing, pulling his hat off and shoving it into Demo’s face, making him laugh. “Bugger off, ruining the moment. Absolute piker.”

“I’m still sorry,” Scout said, quieter now, and Demo and Sniper stopped their shenanigans for a moment to listen. “I just feel bad. I’m being a total baby, getting lonely when nobody talks to me for like, _two days_.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Demo shrugged. “Just means we need to watch out for you better, aye?”

Scout made a noncommittal noise. Sniper and Demo looked at each other, then Sniper spoke.

“We really are working on something, but… you can hang about in here if you’d like,” he suggested lightly. “Might get boring and all, but it’s nothing classified.”

“Just tinkering,” Demo agreed. “Would that help at all?”

Scout nodded, sniffled. “Okay.” He paused for a few moments before he finally pulled away from Demo, wiping his eyes with the his forearm self-consciously, unable to maintain eye contact. “I appreciate it, guys. Really. You guys are the best.”

“No worries,” Sniper said, and gave him a parting pat on the back before he went to pull up the spare chair, situating it between he and Demo’s chairs before sitting back down. Scout took a seat, pulled his legs up onto it to sit cross-legged, and looked down at the papers.

“What were we saying, potassium bicarbonate?” Demo prompted, taking his own seat.

“Right. Might need to talk to Heavy about using his welding materials, but we’d need a real finnicky piece of tech to make the thing without making a bloody mess,” Sniper said.

“And it can’t be from a standard press, we’d want to go for extra precision on a bullet that’ll be going through a sniper rifle,” Demo agreed. “Might need to talk to the Engineer, ask for an hour or two in his shop to borrow his metal casting nonsense.”

“Maybe. Does that, er, potassium carbon whatsit, does it melt down?”

Scout just sat and fiddled with the bullets on the table while they talked, and eventually snagged a piece of paper that wasn’t being used and started to doodle idly. And Demo and Sniper could both tell pretty soon that his mood had improved significantly, shoulders squaring and head being held higher even as he hunched over his piece of paper. And for the rest of their break, Scout took to sitting with either Demo or Sniper while they worked on various things, and at the end of their break, on the last day before they headed back to work, Sniper borrowed Engie’s keys to his truck and the three of them went out to get the greasiest fast food they could find.

And Scout felt better. Really, honestly, better.


	43. Pyro&Team, Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: imagine,,, wholesome platonic pyro x team,,, -🦂"
> 
> i’ll admit, this one is a longie. (no warnings)]]

The second the end-of-day klaxon fired off, Pyro was jumping to their feet and bolting back towards base. Maybe this should worry the team, but they could hear giddy laughter bubbling up from somewhere within the suit, so they weren’t all that worried.

When everyone else got back to base, there was a sign pinned to the swinging doors into the common area, done in five colors of crayon with various smiley faces dotting the empty spaces. “Everyone come back at 7 o’clock please!” it said cheerfully. There was some mild grumbling from Medic, who’d wanted to get something to eat before he headed to go set to work on a project. Heavy clapped him on the shoulder gently and assured him that he could have a sandwich from Heavy’s little fridge.

At a few minutes to 7, nearly all of the mercs had turned up outside the doors of the common area. Scout ended up darting off to find Heavy and Medic, and was dragging them both back down the hall to the place when the doors swung open and Pyro hopped forth brandishing a balloon sword and wearing a party hat.

They gave some incomprehensible cheer, and gestured for the team to go inside.

The vision before them as they filed in was met mostly with wide eyes and complete surprise. The entire common area and kitchen were transformed into a bright, technicolor scene, balloons and streamers and banners hung aloft and across the walls. The chairs, usually in dull, age-worn greys and greens and blacks, were draped in bright new fabric, and every table had a polka-dotted tablecloth. The harsh overheads were dimmed as their beams were inturrupted with dozens of balloons of various colors, and the large table they all so often sat and ate at was absolutely covered with food. A record was spinning away, volume low but immediately working as a wonderful final touch to transform the room, so often home to tiredness and bickering and infighting during their time off, instead making it a place full of light and life.

Everyone ended up investigating something different. Scout, for one, immediately bounded over to the table of food. “Jesus H. fuckin’ _Christ_, Mumbles, this must’a taken you all _night!_” he exclaimed, shocked and enthusiastic all at the same time. He zeroed in on a massive stack of chocolate chip cookies, picking one up off the pile and eating it practically in one bite and talking through it. “I’m fuckin’ starving here though, thanks for—“

Then he stopped. Kept chewing, eyebrows furrowing together for a moment, energy freezing in its tracks as he did so, staring off into space like trying to remember something.

Suddenly, a very different energy. He looked at Pyro, who had their hands clasped together and was watching his reaction carefully. For maybe the first time in his life, he was entirely lost for words, for five, ten, fifteen seconds.

“Mumbles, this is… this why you asked me to get that recipe for you? For cookies?” he asked, quiet now, taken aback. Pyro nodded, asked him a question. He took a second or two to sort out what they asked, and then he nodded distractedly. “No, yeah, you nailed it, it’s perfect. Exactly right. It’s…”

He swallowed hard, swiped hard at his eyes with his forearm, laughed a little. Pyro opened their arms, and he accepted the hug immediately, pulling them into a tight embrace, lifting them up off the ground a little with it.

“Yeah. Tastes just like back home. My Ma would be real proud of you, ain’t anybody that ever gets it this right.” A harder squeeze for a minute. “Thank you. I… seriously, there’s not even words. Thank you. You’re the best, pal.”

Pyro squeezed him right back, and then released, moving away as he turned back to the table again, picking up another cookie and starting to eat it much more studiously.

They picked up a plate they’d set aside in the kitchen, hurrying over to present it to Heavy, who was investigating the balloons with some amount of amusement. He laughed the second he laid eyes on it, taking it from Pyro and looking more closely.

“Leetle Pyro, what is this?” he asked, clearly amused and pleased. “How did you make such leetle sandviches? Why is this?”

Pyro’s reply was cheerful, gesturing first to the sandwiches, then holding their finger and thumb close together, then gesturing over towards the rest of the team. Heavy gave a hearty laugh.

“Baby sandviches for baby team?” he asked, still laughing. Pyro nodded. “Oh, Doktor will love this. I go now to show him. Thank you, Pyro. Perhaps I make these and give to team more. Is very good joke.”

Pyro nodded, and Heavy wandered away, still laughing. They watched as he recounted the joke to Medic, clearly very proud of himself, laughing just as hard as the first time even as Medic fought down a grin and rolled his eyes. Heavy then moved on to the next teammate and repeated it.

Demo appeared to be talking Soldier down from popping every balloon on the same side of the color spectrum as the other team. Pyro moved over, jumping to grab hold of one of the strings, and handed one to Demo, who raised an eyebrow, already entertained by whatever they were on about. They grabbed another balloon and held it up to their own face, and inhaled exaggeratedly.

Demo’s expression lit up. “Och, now there’s an idea!” he said, and turned to Soldier. “Look here, watch this one!”

He pinched near the tail of the balloon, nipping a hole in the rubber and taking a deep inhale of it before pinching it back off again. He then turned back to Soldier and grinned.

“Aye, how do I—“ he started to ask, but promptly broke down in laughter at how high-pitched his voice had gone, only redoubling as he heard how ridiculous it was. Soldier and Pyro laughed as well, and within moments Engie had wandered over to see what the commotion was and was laughing as well. Pyro handed their balloon over to Soldier, who immediately moved to do the same thing, and soon the three of them were fully occupied with joking around with each other.

Pyro looked around and noted Spy looking at the sleeve that the record on the player belonged to, clearly trying very hard to seem bored. They moved over and took hold of the sleeve of his jacket, ignoring his protests and pulling him over to the table.

They promptly lifted a wine bottle from the wide selection of alcohol there at the end. They handed it to him, and he took it with a frown and started looking over the label.

His eyebrows shot up, and then he promptly narrowed his eyes at Pyro, a series of questions there in his eyes. The first was vocalized within a few seconds. “Not a particularly old selection, not to mention from some little local winery in France that I am quite sure very few people have ever even heard of,” he said pointedly. “And I’m sure very difficult to track down, even if you knew such an assuredly small backwater nowhere of a town existed. What would cause you to place a specialty order from anywhere like that?”

Pyro just looked at him, hands clasped behind their back.

Spy glanced around at their teammates for a few moments before he spoke again, his voice low. “I’m not entirely sure how you came into knowledge of my place of birth, but I assume I can _trust_ you to make sure nobody else learns it,” he said, a weight to the word that implied it might not be trust, but instead a threat.

Pyro nodded without even needing to think about it, though, and Spy’s shoulders sagged momentarily. He then straightened, looking over the label for a few more moments, expression softening ever so slightly with each passing moment.

“And I’m sure there is not anyone who would be able to tell you this, but I do prefer red wine when given the opportunity of a choice,” he finally deigned to say, much lighter than before. He looked over at Pyro. “So thank you.”

Pyro nodded cheerfully, and edged a glass from the rest and towards him, then bounded off again.

Sniper was stood off away from the bustle to one side of the room, looking vaguely uncomfortable from his body language, even as his face was an impassive mask, revealing nothing. He visibly jumped as a balloon was popped by Medic on accident, frowning hard at it. Pyro moved over and greeted him, and he just nodded at them distractedly, gaze continuing to move between the record player and the table of food and the chaos of Soldier and Demo laughing themselves half to death over the helium and the bright, multicolored light filtering through the balloons. Pyro gingerly took hold of his sleeve where it was rolled up to his elbow and gently tugged on it, leading him through the door into the kitchen.

There were three overheads, but two had been blocked out almost entirely by a mass of black balloons, the final having a white sheet pinned over it to dull the light. Once through the door, the majority of the noise and commotion faded into the background. Pyro then prompted Sniper to look at a bag of coffee that was next to the coffee machine, which apparently already held a full pot of the stuff. Sniper investigated without fanfare, reading over the label.

“Some fancy fair-trade nonsense,” he said, even as his expression betrayed him being impressed, and somewhat surprised. “Leagues better than that tea nonsense our Europeans drinks, at least, and the bulk store buggery we’ve usually got.”

Pyro gestured enthusiastically towards the pot that had already been brewed. Sniper scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck.

“Don’t exactly have a mug for it, mate,” he said carefully. “Mine broke at breakfast a week or so ago, remember? Planned on headed out to a… thrift shop, or flea market or the like, sometime this weekend. Then I can give it a try. If, er… if there’s any left by then.”

Pyro put their hands on their hips, tapping their foot impatiently.

Sniper sighed, moving over to the cabinet where they kept cups. “I’ll just knick one from the other blokes, sure they won’t mind,” he finally agreed, pulling the doors open.

He froze for a few seconds, then gingerly pulled out a mug with a little ribbon bow affixed to the handle.

Sniper was at a loss for words for a moment, then laughed incredulously. “Mate, this was… in pieces, probably two dozen shards, this was long gone,” he marveled, looking over the tiny little cracks that showed up along the surface of it, just barely marring the surface that then read “#1 Sniper” bold and clear. “How bloody long did this take you?”

Pyro shrugged, a little bashful. Sniper appeared to be at a loss for what to do, and ended up putting the mug down, reaching over and giving them an awkward clap on the shoulder.

“Thanks, mate. I appreciate it,” he said, and maybe it would’ve been an underwhelming reaction for most people, but it was an awful lot more than Sniper generally gave to anyone, and so Pyro brightened immediately, bopping him right back.

Engie called them before they could even make it around to him. “Firebug!”

They left the kitchen right away, leaving Sniper behind to the relative quiet and dark and peace. Engie was by the table, looking over a bottle. They greeted him cheerfully.

“Now, this here says it’s sweet tea,” he said, holding up the bottle in question. “Now does that mean it’s some, uh, northern sweet tea that’s not much sweet of anything, or real sweet tea?”

“Maybe it’s Long Island iced tea,” Scout quipped from down the table. “You should chug it and see.”

Pyro waved Scout off and assured him it was real. They explained that they’d gone through all the steps to make the sweet tea the proper way, the same way he’d bemoaned to them every time they were stationed anywhere but in the heart of the United States’ South. Heating the tea up, adding tons of sugar while it was hot, and chilling it again. Engie nodded, apparently satisfied.

They then gestured him over a ways down the table, and directed his attention towards the center. He needed to lean up on his toes and crane his neck a little to see it over the mass of food there, but when his eyes landed on the centerpiece, he absolutely lit up, laughing a little.

“Firebug, where in Sam Hill did you manage to find bluebonnets?” he asked, absolutely delighted. “Those are a full month or so outta season. And those are fresh—bless your heart, did you _grow_ these?”

Pyro nodded, and Engie laughed, drew them into a hug, clapping them on the back as he did so.

“You’re too sweet for your own good, honest you are,” Engie said, and Pyro laughed. “Doin’ all of this for everyone.”

Pyro shrugged, assured him it wasn’t any trouble, and drew back enough to point out to him that they’d made some food that he in particular would probably be excited about, and moved away as he picked up a plate and started digging right in.

They moved over to Soldier, and ended up tugging on his jacket until he finally abandoned where he and Demo were attempting to peer pressure Heavy into inhaling some helium. Pyro dragged him out the back door, making sure to prop it open behind them and saving a balloon from escaping and flying off into the stratosphere. They led him to the dumpster they’d dragged a few meters closer to the door, and flipped open the lid, quickly reaching inside and coming up with two armfuls.

Soldier could not have possibly looked any more excited than he did in that exact moment as he processed the sight of Lieutenant Bites and Lance Corporal Chompers wearing little party hats and covered in little pieces of paper confetti. He promptly set about informing those two—and the several other raccoons rapidly starting to escape from the dumpster—about just how goddamn adorable they looked in their tiny hats and rainbow confetti. He ended up seizing the Lieutenant and holding him tight to his chest, bringing him inside to show to Demo for the five minutes he managed to keep hold of him for before he darted right back out the door and joined his raccoon friends in tearing their cute little hats into shreds. Soldier brought the entire container of sour cream off of the table to give to them outside, and nobody stopped him.

Inside, he picked up one of the records and moved over to Medic, who was busy watching Heavy and Demo go lightheaded from inhaling helium, rolling his eyes the entire time even as he didn’t stop them. Pyro tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, and handed over the record.

Medic looked pleased, glancing over the record, flipping it over to look at the specific music on it. “I was not aware that we owned any records of classical music,” he mused, visibly cheered up. “I thought that our Soldier had shattered most of them last time we attempted to play board games as a team bonding exercise.”

Pyro nodded, and Medic looked over the album again.

“Ja, this is new. Did you buy this specifically for this, er… occassion?” Medic asked, eyebrows drawn together.

Pyro shook their head, gesturing fro the record to Medic.

“It’s for me then?” Medic asked, starting to grin, and Pyro for one didn’t comment on how worrying he looked when he was pleased with something. “Danke, how very kind of you! It is _very_ much appreciated, my friend. Might I play it now?”

Pyro nodded, and he did. The first swells of a symphony filled the room, and Scout and Demo briefly bemoaned listening to “boring fancy-pants music”, but the tunes were so lighthearted and cheerful that they quickly forgot about it, letting it fade into background noise.

The change of music to something more calm and the general mood of the room settling down were enough to coax Sniper out from the kitchen, and soon Soldier had returned, his and Scout’s moods significantly mellowed out following what they’d been given by Pyro. Soon enough, they were all sat around the table, digging in and talking cheerfully. It was an eclectic assortment of options, and everyone was surprised to find foods specific to their own tastes, and all talked excitedly about their own meals, the stories surrounding the times when they’d eaten them. Heavy, for one, wouldn’t stop repeating his new favorite joke about baby sandwiches for baby teammates.

And then plates were being passed around. Spy was trying brisket, and the Engineer was trying clam chowder, and Scout was trying brautwurst, and Medic was trying crocodile jerky. Some of them collectively bemoaned the favorite food of the others—only Sniper seemed to enjoy the stew Heavy so much liked, saying it had some weird spice combinations, and the corn on the cob that Soldier was ripping through had far too much salt and butter on it according to the entire Support team as well as Demo and Heavy. And only Scout was brave enough (or rather, dared) to try the family recipe venison pie, but upon him saying it actually wasn’t that bad, Medic and Soldier we’re inclined to try, the reception lukewarm and positive respectively. Others were enthusiastic, Scout in particular being surprised that the quiche was something that “Mister hoity-toity” Spy himself claimed to be a favorite, and there being a unanimous consensus at the table that the chocolate chip cookies were downright delicious. Pyro assured Scout that they would make more for him when he seemed a little worried that everyone else would clear that plate and not leave any left over.

For hours, they sat, they ate, they talked, they told stories. Some from their childhoods, and growing up, and traveling, others simply the product of their going on tangents of tangents.

There was only a cake left on the table at the end of the night, luckily a very small one, most of them two steps past full. They agreed that everyone would at least attempt one slice of it, and Pyro stood up and fetched a cake knife and some fresh plates from the kitchen.

“Hey, hey Mumbles,” Scout said upon their return before they could even sit down. “How come you did all this, anyways? Like, seriously, this—this had to be like, _days_ of work.”

“Weeks, even,” Spy chimed a few chairs down.

“Entire weekends,” Engie agreed.

“Awful lot of work to go to, aye?” Demo asked, blinking curiously at them.

Pyro shifted, a little nervous, set the knife down to fidget with their hands for a few seconds. Their reply was so mumbled that nobody could pick up on it.

“I beg your pardon?” Medic asked, leaning in a little, brows furrowed.

Pyro repeated themselves slightly louder.

“Afraid I didn’t catch that,” Engie said from their right.

Pyro repeated themselves slightly louder.

In an instant, Scout was on his feet, openly shocked. “Woah, hold on, are you fuckin’ serious?!” he all but shouted, absolutely aghast.

Questioning noises from around the table.

“They said it’s their fuckin’ _birthday_.”

An amount of chaos. Some were incredulous, some shocked, others apologetic, others mostly just confused.

“Jesus H. _fucking Christ_, Mumbles, how come you didn’t tell nobody?!” Scout demanded, voice rising over most of the others and cutting through the noise. “I mean, shit, I don’t even have a gift or nothin’!”

Pyro’s response was drowned out by the rest of the team carrying on, and Scout gestured wildly at them to make them shut up, and silence fell again. He gestured at them, then, and they repeated themselves, speaking slowly and clearly and loudly to be understood through the mask.

“Well, maybe the only gift I really wanted was to give something to all the rest of you guys. To thank you for being my friend.”

Silence, and then chaos again.

A few voices could be picked out. Heavy, exclaiming “Of course leetle Pyro is friend, is credit to team!”. Sniper exclaiming, “Look, we don’t—no need to thank us, we _like_ being mates with you, you lunatic!”. Demo exclaiming, “Cut it with the thanks lark, all these gifts, you know we love ya to death, lad!”. Soldier exclaiming, “We aren’t friends, we are _brothers!_ Metaphorically!”. Similar sentiments echoed, mercs pointing at each other end agreeing heartily, and they carried on for quite some time before they all started falling quiet again, apparently noticing the sound coming from within Pyro’s suit, hands clasped across the bottommost part of their mask.

The crying sound.

“Hey, hey, c’mon now Firebug, what’re the tears for?” Engie urged gently, hand on their shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” they assured, sniffling. “I just love you guys.”

Scout stood up again, apparently making a decision. “Okay, that’s it. Stand up,” he said, and Pyro did. “Alright, group hug. Everyone get in here.”

The team started rising from their own seats within a moment, for once not arguing with the unusual show of affection and camaraderie.

“Hey, that means you, Legs,” Scout said, pointing an accusatory finger towards Sniper as the man stood up. “Get the fuck in here. You too Spy, don’t be a dick.”

“I’m just moving to get around the table, don’t be an animal,” Spy deadpanned, and Sniper murmured an agreement, and then the whole team was there. All just stood, practically crushing Pyro under the weight of eight men’s worth of embraces, and they returned it as best they could, still a bit sniffly.

But then, “Happy birthday to Leetle Pyro,” Heavy said decisively, and the sentiment was immediately echoed by the rest of the team, and then the waterworks were back in full effect. This apparently prompted Soldier to decide they weren’t hugging Pyro tightly enough, at which point he started hugging at maximum strength, surprising several mercs and almost sending them toppling into the table. Once they decided the sappiness was over, and Demo asked if anyone actually had any room left for the cake and largely got a chorus of “no”s in response, Scout picked it up and shoved it directly into Spy’s face, and the mood was back to a cheerful version of normal as Medic reminded them idly that they still had plenty of alcohol left to consume.

Pyro wouldn’t be hard pressed to call it the best birthday ever, especially since their being the one celebrating it meant they were informed that they didn’t have to help with the cleanup afterwards.


	44. Sniper/Scout, Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: your dad!spy was absolutely amazing, as expected. you should get award or something else, i have no idea how you have only 400(?) followers. have you considered creating kofi? and; i wanna see scout being slinged over sniper's shoulder for some reason. ♡ -🦂"
> 
> i feel like scout tf2 would only be pick-uppable against his will in very specific situations or else he’d wiggle around like a maniac until he got dropped and then like. probably get concussed about it. (and uhh the other question im slamming into another post so one sec)]]

“Scout.”

Grumbling and mumbling from the pile of blankets.

Sniper sighed hard, took a knee. “Scout, you need to wake up. We’ve things to do. Get up.”

More grumbling, and exactly enough blankets shifted for Scout to peek out at him, squinting a little and visibly drowsy. “Fuckin’ what?” he murmured, words slurring together a little around a yawn. “Go away, it’s too early.”

“No it isn’t, and you need to wake up.”

“I don’t gotta wake up *that* bad,” Scout complained, bundling back beneath the blanket, and Sniper rolled his eyes, pulling one of the blankets off. Scout just burrowed beneath another one.

“Love, you agreed to head out and help me and Truckie with groceries this week. You need to get up or else you’ll make us late,” he reminded sternly.

“I’m not getting up and you can’t make me!” Scout said firmly if sleepily, turning his back to Sniper.

“I absolutely can. Get up,” Sniper said, taking another one of the blankets, leaving just one left.

Scout mumbled something that might’ve been “fuck off” into the pillow.

“You asked for it,” Sniper shrugged, and rolled his shoulders, bending down and looping an arm around Scout’s waist—

—and bodily hefting him over Sniper’s shoulder.

The blanket came with, and Scout’s protest was a considerable amount of grumbling and to pull it around his own face.

Scout could be a nightmare when woken early on the weekends. Only two things could get him awake. The first was his energy drinks, and Sniper wasn’t entirely sure where he usually kept them and didn’t particularly want to be in the kitchen around the daily chaos.

It was about a three minute walk until he put Scout down, having him lean against the wall when he made it clear he didn’t feel like standing, taking the blanket away after a moment’s thought. “Hold still,” he said firmly.

The second, of course, was a nice cold shower.

Scout only had about three seconds to look confused and one to look alarmed as he realized where he was before Sniper switched on the shower and he was hit with a nice, ice cold spray. He struggled for a minute, yelping in surprise and shock and nearly slipping as he tried to escape. When he was finally out, his sleep shorts and shirt soaked through, his eyes were wide and he was shivering violently at the sudden cold shock.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he declared, fully enunciated, glaring at Sniper. Sniper shrugged at him cheerfully.

“That’s what you bloody well told me to do if you were being a prick in the morning,” he reminded, and reached forward to muss Scout’s hair. “And need I remind you that you’re dating me voluntarily?”

“Well apparently I’m dating a fucking asshole,” Scout mumbled, and accepted the blanket when Sniper offered it back to him, promptly starting to use it as a towel.

“Care to go get dressed now?” Sniper suggested lightly.

“Yeah, fine, fine.” Silence from him for a good minute or two of the walk back to his room again. When he next spoke, it wasn’t with sass, it was actually rather sheepish. “…Love you.”

“Love you too,” Sniper said, and kissed him right on the still-dripping-wet temple, and then Scout was smiling.


	45. Sniper/Scout, Murderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: I have a scout headcanon where he's not a murderer and the other team respawns so he's not a murderer but sniper is. Before the job, he was an actual assassin, payed to kill people who respawn. Maybe you could (given that you have free time) write a short fic about scout realizing that sniper is an actual killer?"
> 
> this was actually a conversation i kinda wanted to try to squeeze somewhere into Taking Shots but i’m not sure if i’m gonna be able to. so here’s a way heavier version of it since i can do that since outside of the fic  
ft. catholic guilt and a lot of semantics]]

Scout had dropped by both to hang out and to listen to the game that night, not wanting to deal with the hustle and bustle of the common area and arguing over what the radio would be set to. And apparently his team won, and then the radio was shut off, and Scout was just finishing off the beer Sniper’d handed him earlier, fingernails tapping against the glass as he looked up at the map on Sniper’s wall.

It was criss-crossed with various marks in varying colors of pen, fading after having had it for so many years, so many contracts.

“Is travelling, like, fun?” Scout asked suddenly out of the blue, looking at the map.

Sniper shrugged. “Can be. Or it can be stressful, if I schedule contracts too close together,” he replied. “What, don’t you count base transfers as travel?”

“Nah,” Scout said. “Not really.”

There was another long pause.

“So it was mostly just… when you were on contract for stuff, then? Before you worked here?” Scout asked.

“Mostly,” Sniper confirmed.

Fingers tapping on glass. “Must’a paid well.”

“Mercenary work usually does,” Sniper shrugged.

Scout took a drink, put the bottle back down again. Looked at it. “I keep forgetting that most of you guys have kinda been, like… doin’ all this shit for years and years. Like, outside of the team. One of those things of like—like when you meet someone and they mention their hair used to be way longer or shorter or whatever and you just can’t imagine it because you’ve only known them lookin’ one way.” Fingers tapping on glass. “That you’ve, like… pretty much always been used to all this.”

“You weren’t?” Sniper asked.

Scout shrugged. “I mean, I pretended. Took a few months to start getting used to it. The dyin’ thing was new for everyone, so that was fine, but… not much of the rest of it.”

Sniper’s brow furrowed. Scout continued after a moment, clearly uncomfortable with the silence.

“I mean, I guess it was kinda like how you guys all had to get used to livin’ with a whole bunch of people. Like, Heavy kinda got it since he’s got all those sisters, and Engie had a bunch of roommates in college and stuff, and you just live out here so you don’t gotta deal with that shit, but I’m the one who lived with like half a dozen other guys for most’a my life growin’ up, y’know? So everyone else had to kinda play it cool with that, and I had to play it cool about killin’ people, it balances out, right?”

Sniper looked him over. Fingers tapping on glass.

“Yeah, nah. Those aren’t the same thing,” Scout said quietly, ducking his head a little.

“You’d never…?” Sniper asked slowly. Saw Scout recoiling a little, changed directions. “Most everyone got recruited from some sort of criminal background. You saying they picked you up right out of… a desk job or some other nonsense?”

“No,” Scout said, voice a little quiet. “No, I… I did what I had to do, alright? And… I always kinda figured if it ever came down to it, I’d… keep doin’ what I had to do, to stay alive, to make it back home again. But I never got beyond fistfights, mostly. Knife fights. Shit like that. Never killin’. So… this was new.”

Sniper shifted. “I could never tell, if that makes a difference,” he mentioned, trying for a lighter tone, and Scout’s lip only quirked for a second before dropping again.

“…Snipes, let me ask you a question real quick,” Scout suddenly proposed, sitting up a little and looking up at Sniper for maybe the first time since the conversation started. “Do you think what we do in our day job counts as murder?”

Sniper considered the question. Scout elaborated.

“They come back again. So if nobody’s really dead, then it’s like nobody died, and if nobody died then nobody got killed. Then technically there’s no killer.”

“I don’t think it counts,” Sniper said decidedly. “Like you said. Nobody’s dead, nobody’s a killer.”

“I… feel like maybe it does,” Scout said carefully. “I feel like it’s about intent, y’know? Like… you’re tryin’ to beat the shit outta someone until they quit breathing, that’s killing, even if they don’t really die. Like in those murder mystery books and whatever where someone gets like, shot in the chest and then fakes dyin’, and the person thinks they killed someone. Ain’t that kinda still murder?”

Sniper sat back, looked at Scout, his fidgeting, the guilt on his face. “I think that’s a real Catholic way of looking at it,” he finally said, and Scout looked up at him, a little surprised. “You said you were raised Catholic, right?”

“Yeah,” Scout nodded.

Sniper exhaled, tilting his own bottle around idly, watching the few drops at the bottom rolling around, considering his words. “I don’t think it’s about intent,” he decided. “I think it’s about… cause and effect. The effect at the end. I don’t think you’re responsible for much of anything that goes on in your own head—you can only control that so much. All you can really control is your actions, and if your actions are automatic or out of your control, more of a… fight or flight response, then you can only control whether you take responsibility for it.”

“What if you do somethin’ and then somethin’ happens that you didn’t mean to happen?” Scout asked.

“Then you still need to take responsibility, if it could be your fault. And… that goes for good or bad, right or wrong. If you’re brilliant on accident, you’ve got to take responsibility. If you do something awful on accident, you’ve got to take responsibility. It goes both ways. Assuming that everything makes you a bad person—that causing lethal harm to someone who can’t die makes you a murderer—that’s just a very Catholic way of looking at it. Constantly finding yourself at fault, assuming you’ve done something wrong, deciding that every choice you make is…” He trailed, losing track of his words for a second.

“Is…?” Scout asked, and when Sniper looked up, Scout appeared to be clinging to his every word.

Sniper paused for another second or two. “Assuming that with everything you do, you’re responsible for the worst possible outcome of the situation regardless of whether it happens or not,” he finally decided. “Everything you do, thinking of the worst case scenario and deciding you’ve earned the guilt of that happening whether it happens or not. But you can’t live like that. You need to focus on what’s actually happening, what you’re actually capable of. Not the semantics surrounding whether you’re technically, legally, morally a murderer. Intention isn’t much of anything, really, but result is, and what you’ve done in our day jobs has never resulted in anyone being dead in a way that matters.”

He finished his little soapbox rant, and wished he could take a drink to dispel his nerves, but his bottle was empty. Scout seemed to be considering something.

“…Sometimes, Miss P sends you on jobs,” Scout said slowly, looking up at him. Sniper nodded. “You kill people on those, right? Real people, not people that come back.” Sniper nodded, more hesitantly. “Do you… count that?”

“Yeah,” Sniper said, concentrating every molecule of his body on making his voice light. “That definitely counts. I’m making independent choices, knowing the result will probably be someone dead, and then someone’s dead for real.”

Scout took a drink, set his bottle down, nodded. Like he’d already known, already come to terms with it, which he probably had. Like he’d only asked because he wanted to know what Sniper thought. Paused. “Sometimes I go on contracts. And it ain’t exactly my job to try and clear out places, I’m more of a… get in, grab somethin’, see somethin’, fuck right back off again before I get shot,” he said. “I’ve never pulled a trigger on someone who dies for real. Only ever maybe whacked someone upside the head if I gotta get past them.”

“Not a killer, then,” Sniper said simply, but Scout shot a look at him and he stopped again.

“Here’s the thing though, is I go in there and figure out where shit is. Where they store explosives, where the exits are, who lives and sleeps where, the layout of places,” he continued. Tipped his bottle from one side to another, drained the last of it and leaned to drop it in the trash can. “Snipes, I ain’t an idiot. I know Miss P thinks I am, all the guys think I am, but I ain’t an idiot.” The bottle shattered against the bottom of the can, startling Sniper a little. Scout didn’t flinch, though. “I know Miss Pauling goes, or sends someone else, and kills basically everyone in there once I tell her how to get in.”

He got comfortable again, shifting a little. Sniper just watched him warily.

“That’s basically the same thing as me putting the bullet in their head myself, isn’t it?” Scout asked, looking back up at him, expression hard to read.

Sniper hesitated. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “But… I don’t think I’d count that, either. Not properly.”

Scout sank back, and that hard to read expression shifted into frustration. “Look, okay. Maybe I don’t personally kill people,” he said, tone short. “But I sure as hell hurt people. Sure as hell fuck up their whole shit. And I dunno if that’s worse, but it’s not that much _better_. Like, Jesus Christ, I mean, everyone on the team’s got nightmares these days, I can’t hear a car backfire in town without wanting to take a swing at someone. I won’t be able to make it living with regular people once this job finally runs out, and neither will most of us, and neither will most of those other assholes on the other side of the field. In all the ways that matter, that dumbass piece of shit kid Jeremy died on his first day on the job. He doesn’t exist anymore. Now,” he said, and his throat seemed to go tight suddenly, and he looked off to one side, swallowing hard. “Now I’m just Scout. Now I just hurt people. Because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.”

Sniper didn’t know what to say.

Scout swallowed again, visibly steeling himself. “I’ve got another question for you,” he said.

“Go on,” Sniper prompted gently.

“Is a killer someone who’s killed people before,” Scout asked, “or is it somebody who tries to kill people because it’s the only thing they know how to do?”


	46. Sniper&Spy, Soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: hello! do you take sniperspy requests? if it's okay with you can i ask for something soft between them? not romantic or sexual but i mean Soft™ and intimate moment maybe some kind of inside joke they only understand idk. thank you!"
> 
> me, speaking into the mic, my mouth exactly zero millimeters away from it: what if spy and sniper….. were best friends  
my girlfriend from the back of the auditorium: (absolutely apeshit bananas applause)]]

Spy sauntered out the door and into the shade of the base, pointedly moving to stand more comfortably even as he kept an amount of distance between himself and the wall for the sake of his far-too-expensive suit. He took a cigarette from his case without needing to look, lit it in one smooth motion, took a puff, and exhaled. Then, and only then, did he turn his head to acknowledge Sniper, lounging against the wall a few feet away.

“Your fifth smoke break of the day, _mon ami_,” he observed neutrally. “I can’t help but wonder if something might be bothering you.”

Sniper didn’t reply verbally, but there was a muscle in his shoulders that went lax when Spy finally spoke. He took a drag of his own cigarette.

It was something that the team had commented on, once or twice. The fact that Sniper’s greatest enemy on the battlefield was the other team’s Spy, and Spy’s the other team’s Sniper, and yet with the counterpart on their own team, there was no great tension or rivalry to speak of. Instead, their relationship was entirely professional, even somewhat warm. And they took care to have the team think they were merely professional, as strictly speaking, friendship was looked down upon in their line of work, but also because with the aforementioned rivalry, their being good and well-trusted friends was something that would surely be questioned and prodded at and neither of them cared for such theatrics.

Well, Spy did ever-so-slightly, but he knew that Sniper loathed such attention, and so took care to be discreet.

“Am I being that obvious?” Sniper asked after a brief silence between them, voice a deliberate kind of calm and easygoing and level.

“_Non_, I’m simply being observant,” Spy replied easily, and took another drag before he elaborated. “Usually you only smoke this much when your scores are down or we’re on a losing streak, but you’ve been performing in an entirely standard and average way all week. You seem to be coping with a stress that simply doesn’t seem to be there. And so, something is bothering you.”

“Social mathematician, you are,” Sniper huffed, rolling his eyes.

“I might not have noticed, if not for the fact that you forgot your cigarettes at work and had to ask me for one three separate times and didn’t seem to remember it,” Spy admitted.

Sniper nodded at that, eyes drifting to look back out at the landscape stretching before them again.

“So?” Spy prompted, voice a bit quieter. “What is bothering you?”

Sniper reached up to knead at the bridge of his own nose, eyes falling shut, needing to push his glasses up out of the way to do so. “Not sure I’d like to talk about it, t’be honest,” he said, tone falling in parallel.

Spy shifted on his feet, looking into the distance as well for a moment. After a second or two, he spoke again, changing tactics. “Perhaps some long-lost love, or the glory days of youth?” Spy asked, intentionally melodramatic. “Pondering what all was, or perhaps what once could have been? Have you been assigned a quest by some supernatural or religious force that will surely involve mortal perils?”

“Bugger off, Spook,” Sniper deadpanned, but there was an undeniable twitch at the corner of his mouth as he fought the urge to smile at the theatrics.

“I’m only this curious because more often than not, I’m the one being dramatic and glaring at the horizon line, _mon ami_. Melancholy is a new look on you,” Spy admitted, dropping the joke.

“It’s… hard to explain,” Sniper finally said, and the hint of a laugh was gone.

“You’ll find I’m patient,” Spy replied easily.

Sniper was quiet for another few moments. He looked at the stub of a cigarette he had left and gave up on it, crushing it out against the wall and then grinding it into the sand beneath his heel. “It’s not… it’s not your joke about the ‘long lost love’ buggery,” he said, doing halfhearted air quotes. “It’s more… in general, the idea of…”

Spy didn’t interrupt or make any jokes, simply waiting patiently for Sniper to decide on a sentence to finish.

“…I’m just, I’ve never done any of this right,” Sniper finally said, sighing hard at himself. “Grew up too scrawny, too clever and cared too much about books when I was young and then wasn’t clever enough when I started getting older, learnt to shoot rather than fistfight, ended up a mercenary rather than a… a scientist or a rancher or any other respectable thing. And I never… never went out, never got along with anyone, and, after a while you can’t help but wonder if you’re just not meant for _people_. If maybe it means something that dating never once appealed to you beyond being some big strange idea of a thing that eventually you’re meant to get around to, or…” He hung his head, dragging a hand down over his face. “…I don’t know. It’s… I had it for a moment.”

Spy hesitated for a few moments, looking at him. Considered his words. Stepped over to clap a gentle hand to Sniper’s shoulder, exhaled when that made Sniper relax in some small way. “If it’s any consolation, I can assure you that you are not the only person in the world who feels that way, and perhaps even not the only man on this base who feels that way,” Spy said finally. “It takes a particular kind of person to willingly go live in a cramped, terrible experimental military base in the deserts of New Mexico being killed practically on the daily. I’m sure that is a sentiment you will find in great supply among the other men here, should you ask. And for what it’s worth, even if you are not meant for _regular_ people, you are well liked and very much respected by your coworkers and by me.”

Sniper nodded in a way that meant he heard and understood what Spy was saying, even if he couldn’t quite formulate a verbal response to it, which was such a specific thing to read into a nod that for a minute it caught Spy by surprise and he lost track of what he’d been planning on saying next. He took a moment to try and remember it.

“What I think might help, more than expediting your inevitable lung cancer and getting a replacement set from the Docteur,” he said, gesturing pointedly with his own cigarette, “is taking one of those… what do you call them, hunting trips?”

“Just camping, usually, more than hunting,” Sniper corrected lightly.

“_Oui_, that. You haven’t taken a break in quite some time, and it’s terrible for morale. You were talking about the, the Rocky Mountains being the place you were hoping to see next, since last time you went to the Appilachia?”

“Appalachian Mountains, yeah,” Sniper nodded. “You’d know that if you, er, ever bloody well agreed to go with one of these times.”

“I simply do not see the appeal of camping,” Spy said airily. “It is not to my tastes. There is value in quiet cabins and inns in countryside or less populated places, but camping itself simply does not appeal to me.”

“What, never been?” Sniper asked lightly, mouth quirking up on one side.

Spy scoffed, well and truly offended. “I take back absolutely everything I said about you being respected,” he said firmly.

Sniper started to snicker outright. “Oh, go on, why’s that?” he prodded.

“You do not get to use ‘never been’ for _camping_. That is not allowed,” Spy said firmly.

“You’ve used ‘never been’ for bloody _wine tastings_, you absolute cheat!” Sniper pointed out.

“Less so the wine tasting and more the region itself,” Spy huffed, posture straight, head held high. “But you do not get to use ‘never been’ for camping.”

‘Never been’ was one of their pettier jokes, to be fair. It had started when Sniper had challenged Spy’s claim to being the most well-travelled individual on the team, and when Spy had asked where exactly Sniper had travelled to, he’d begun bringing up locations outside of largely English- and French-speaking regions, and ended off his list with a rather cocky “What’s the matter, have you never been?” It had kicked off them each naming place after place in stories when around the team, saying the place in passing then lightheartedly saying “never been?” in an entirely and increasingly ridiculous and elaborate manner for more and more specific locations.

As they ran out of stories and places, they began to argue semantics more and it became clear that the joke wasn’t even truly them trying to make fun of each other so much as them bonding over the concept of traveling in their own way, and they found it coming up more in conversation in the wake of the joke.

“Fine, can I at least use it for the mountains?” Sniper laughed.

“No, because I _have_ been, thank you very much,” Spy huffed, turning up his nose at the very thought.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, you’re just ridiculous.”

“Are you going to go camping or not?” Spy challenged.

Sniper rolled his eyes, even if his mood had visibly improved, his posture straightening out, less tension in his brow. “Not scheduled to have a break for a long while.”

“We do have vacation days, however,” Spy pointed out.

“I don’t do that,” Sniper said without hesitation. “I’m not leaving you blokes alone to deal with the other Sniper so I can go build a bonfire near some trees, awright?”

“Would it not be convenient, though, if something were to mysteriously happen to him and he just so happened to miss work for the exact number of days that you were gone?” Spy asked lightly, examining his cigarette case with too much interest.

“Do you want him to hate you _more_, Spook?” Sniper asked dryly. “You can’t just sabotage the man so I can go see slightly more bloody birds than usual.”

“I’m not saying I would sabotage the man! I’m just saying it would be a funny coincidence that would be entirely unrelated to me and nobody would ever be able to prove otherwise,” Spy said, just as lightly as before.

A pause. “…What kind of mysterious something would happen to him, just out of curiosity?” Sniper asked, tone flat.

“Oh, how on earth would I know such a thing, _mon ami?_ I have no idea. But if I were to venture a guess I would simply say that he would be hired on a contract to protect some random citizen in a faraway city who is in absolutely no danger in the first place by some mysterious but concerned source,” Spy shrugged airily.

“…And you’re sure you don’t want to go camping too?” Sniper asked, tone back to normal and vaguely conversational. “Really, it’s not all that bad. You might enjoy it.”

“I am more than fine,” Spy assured, dropping the joke for a moment and shaking his head. “But thank you for the offer.”

Sniper nodded vaguely, considering it. “…Might just take off next Thursday and Friday, make a four-day weekend, two days to camp and a day’s travel and packing on either end,” he mused aloud. Paused. “…Thanks. For… you know.”

“I do,” Spy agreed easily. “And it is of no issue, _mon ami_, I can assure you.”

“Right.” Sniper stood there for a moment, lost in his own thoughts again. Paused. “Well, bugger off now, Spook. Go… drink wine, or, or whatever the hell else you do.”

“But of course,” Spy laughed, and crushed his own cigarette into the sand. “_Bonne nuit_, Bushman.”

“See ya, Spook,” Sniper said easily, even as Spy cloaked and walked away, his eyes still locked on the horizon line.


	47. Medic&Team, Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Yo once again I LOVE your work and your writing style is stupendous my dude. If you're still taking requests, I was wondering if you could write a drabble about one of the more emotionally strong members of the team (medic, engie, spy, etc.) having an absolute b r e a k d o w n and how the others deal with it. Once again, you're a national treasure and I hope you're safe in these trying times!!"
> 
> i think “national treasure” is one of my favorite compliment phrases just because i literally can’t think of it without also thinking of nic cage. maybe he’ll come by to steal me away from the fucking horrific sleep schedule that resulted in me writing i think actually none of this before 3 AM  
(this is like 7k words, warnings for mention of medic doing medic things, mention of violence, possible trigger warnings for drug use, drug misuse, and overdose, and mention of problems with eating and sleeping)]]

It was a quiet, slow, creeping thing, right up until the moment that it wasn’t. Something that might have eventually been noticed in a way besides in hindsight, but it wasn’t, not until it was almost grotesquely unavoidably obvious. Some might describe it as tragic, but Heavy would mostly just describe it as a personal failing that he didn’t notice and intervene sooner.

He should’ve noticed that the dark circles under Medic’s eyes were getting darker, from simple marks of age to a signifier that perhaps he’d been too invested in his work to go to sleep on time for a night or two and then at some point to so dark they might have been mistaken for bruises.

He should’ve noticed that Medic’s posture had shifted from crisp and ramrod-straight to looser and lower, his movements changing from confident if erratic to downright jerky and unnatural. Rather than cheering and shouting his excitement with the rest of the team to join the fray and jump into battle, he had started simply telling them to hurry up, barking out his usual warnings with less humor and lightheartedness or even comical levels of borderline maternal concern, instead frantic at best and angry at worst.

He should’ve noticed that Medic was spending less time crooning and having one-sided humorous dialogues with his birds when Heavy was in the room, spending less time paying attention to the birds in general, silent and almost too-still, face locked in a tight lack of expression.

To be fair, he did notice before the major fallout itself occurred, albiet so very shortly before. He noticed the fact that Medic showed up to battle with his trademark crisp white coat in a much more ruffled and rumbled condition, his hair slightly out of order and his glasses slightly dirty and smudged. And then he noticed and realized all those other things one after another, with mounting concern, but then battle was starting and he had no time to address it.

After battle he’d forgotten for a while, preoccupied by other thoughts of other things, and only remembered it later that night, at which point he considered his options for a long while before eventually deciding to follow his gut and go check on Medic.

The hallway before the infirmary was entirely silent and very dim, late evening settling into view across the base, the general chaos the team tended to create starting to subside in the wake of sunset. 

Usually, Medic could be assumed to be up to any number of things, but most often a specific few. Working on getting black market animal organs, or doing basic caretaking for his multitude of doves, or working with some cadaver or other probably bloody experiment. Every once and a while he was locked away in the room offshooting from the infirmary that was likely meant to be used as a ward, brewing up more of the healing vapor he used in his Medigun (the recipe and process of which was a very closely guarded secret).

But oddly enough, this time he had out chemistry equipment.

Heavy hesitated at the door. Usually Medic would acknowledge him—or anyone else entering his space—the moment they showed up, always very aware of any given space that he was in. But he remained hunched over whatever he was working on.

Heavy stood there for a few moments, observing a series of other things that weren’t quite right since suddenly his attention was on it. For one thing, his birds weren’t crowded up around him and his work, and were instead all up among the rafters, practically out of sight and very quiet. For another, Medic hadn’t even taken off his coat and gloves, something usually standard for him once he was in his lab space. And often Medic had music playing and spoke quickly and quietly to himself or his patient or his birds as he worked, but instead now he was silent.

Heavy moved forward carefully, slowly, navigating his way towards Medic as well as he could. Glanced over what Medic was working on—something with test tubes, something being portioned out, maybe. In the harsh light of the overhead, his dark circles seemed so much more pronounced.

Medic finally seemed to take notice of him in his periphery and jolted bodily, flinching back with a sharp yelp of panic. He practically tripped over himself as he reared away, and Heavy flinched too in shock and surprise as Medic’s flailing ended up knocking beakers and test tubes and measuring implements alike to the ground to shatter, and in only a few seconds the area had gone to one of calm and silence and light disarray to glass shards and spilled chemicals and Medic holding his bonesaw up before himself defensively, back pressed to the counter, eyes wide and chest heaving, looking entirely like a caged animal.

It took Medic a few seconds too long to visibly shake off his panic and fear, blinking a few times to orient himself again, glancing around their immediate area with clear embarrassment. “Ah, Heavy,” he managed, voice wobbling a little, unable to meet Heavy’s eyes. “I… did not hear you enter. You startled me.”

“Heavy noticed,” he said slowly, still surprised but trying very hard not to sound too terribly judging about it.

Medic put his bonesaw back down with a shaking hand, straightening up, belatedly noticing the mess he’d made in his moment of panic, across the floor and across himself. “Did you… need something?” he asked, visibly disoriented and rattled but clearly trying to seem more composed.

“Just… to check on you,” Heavy said, tone even and calm.

“I don’t need checking up on, Heavy,” Medic said, speaking just a touch too quickly and still not entirely meeting his eyes.

“Is just that Doktor has been acting strange and Heavy worries,” he elaborated carefully, gesturing at himself loosely. “About team and about friends especially.”

“It is appreciated but entirely unnecessary thank you,” Medic said firmly, and still, still wouldn’t look at Heavy, eyes locked on the broken glass between them, and Heavy was having a little trouble reading his expression. It was something strange and new, something he hadn’t seen Medic wearing before, but finally he managed to place what emotion he was displaying, and it caught him by surprise.

Something like guilt.

Heavy looked over the remainder of the setup that Medic had been working with, this time more critically. “What is this?” he asked simply, gesturing at the surviving parts of whatever the experiment or project was and the glass on the floor.

Medic flinched a little at the question. “A personal project. Of no concern to you,” he said, voice clipped.

“Maybe a little concern to me,” Heavy tried, an attempt at a joke. “As your friend.”

“Of no concern to you,” Medic repeated, voice migrating from clipped directly over into blatantly cold.

Heavy blinked at it, a stab of hurt worming into his chest and making his expression fall. His jaw went tight. “Fine,” he said, letting his anger take hold for a moment and turning away decisively. “Then Heavy will see Doktor tomorrow.”

He heard Medic sigh harshly before the door fell closed behind him.

He would end up wishing, later on, that he’d kept a level head. Pressed harder, asked more questions. Because he should’ve been more worried than angry, surely, at Medic startling so badly. He should’ve been more worried at Medic dodging questions when usually he was so enthusiastic about rambling about his projects. He should’ve been more worried at the doves not choosing to be all over whatever Medic was doing, or even nearby him.

The next morning, Medic wasn’t at breakfast, which wasn’t strange—he almost never was. Didn’t turn up with the larger part of the team before the match of the day, which was also fair, he tended to do most of his getting ready in the privacy of his own space.

Twenty minutes until the match was meant to start, and Medic wasn’t there, which _was_ strange. He always showed up at least twenty minutes early to set up his weapons and make sure they were in order, to calibrate the Medigun. But maybe he was just running a little late—not usually this late, admittedly, but it was possible, even if it was a first.

But Heavy couldn’t shake a feeling of unease, regardless.

Fifteen minutes until the match was meant to start, and Heavy was elbowed in the upper arm, and startled back out of his thoughts to look for the source.

Scout was giving him a look of mild confusion. “Yo, what’s your deal?” he asked, tone lighthearted. “You’re actin’ like a total space cadet, big guy. What’s up?”

Heavy gave him a look of confusion at the colloquialism, not entirely familiar with it. Scout rolled his eyes.

“Means you’re not paying attention to nothin’. Spacing out. Lookin’ off and gettin’ all up in your own head about stuff,” he elaborated, even if he sighed a bit dramatically at needing to explain.

“Ah,” Heavy nodded, understanding and feeling a little bashful. “Just… thinking.”

Scout was still squinting at him a little bit, as if suspicious. He glanced back towards the room at large as there was a sudden noise, distracted for a moment, before he blinked, standing up straight. “Oh, what, is it ‘cause the Doc ain’t here yet?” he asked outright as it occurred to him.

Heavy nodded after a moment.

Scout rocked on his heels a few times, nodding to himself. “Yeah, hey, that ain’t like him,” Scout seemed to decide. “What’s got him late?”

Heavy frowned at him.

“I mean, you’d be the one to know,” Scout shrugged. “Figured I’d ask.”

“I do not know,” Heavy said, and maybe some bitterness crept into his tone, because Scout’s eyebrows shot up and he promptly removed himself from the conversation.

At the ten minute mark, Heavy could hear the other mercenaries starting to notice too, talking amongst themselves quietly but casually. He didn’t bother overtly listening in or moving to join the conversation, just continuing to look off into middle distance as he listened to them talking.

“Think he’s gone and slept in?” Demo mused.

“That would be a first,” Spy snorted.

“Weren’t at breakfast, then?” Sniper asked quietly. “Nobody seen him today?”

A chorus of “no”s from the team at large.

“And, uh, the big guy hasn’t either,” Scout added helpfully. “Hey, maybe someone should go check on him.”

“He’s cutting it awful close,” the Engineer hesitantly agreed. “If he _has_ slept in, he’d need to wake up right about now if he’s gonna make it at all, let alone all prim and proper. Who’s gonna go check up on him? We could send the big guy.”

Some kind of noise and motion from Scout.

“…Alright, well, any volunteers?”

“I’ll go,” Spy finally said with a sigh. “Keep radios on, I’ll call in. Do not press the button.”

Heavy went cold, suddenly remembering the button in question.

They were hired mercenaries, and the large majority of them were… somewhat unstable. There were a few measures in place to make sure that nobody was doing anything… ill-advised. Their being stationed so far from civilization, and their work lives being scheduled to take up so much of their time, and a series of buttons around the base in case of a few emergency situations.

Obviously there were some for fires, earthquakes, or other disasters. Explosions, power outages, and other things of that nature. Then there were buttons for break-ins, stolen briefcases, sieges, assassination attempts.

Then there were a few for a couple of very specific instances. For a member of the team betraying the rest of them. For a member of the team being fired or quitting. And lastly, there was a button that was shared for two purposes—for any given member of the team not showing up to battle by the five-minute mark before prep time was set to begin, and for any given member of the team going officially AWOL. If they didn’t show up for work on time, they were to be presumed missing, and therefore presumed to be making a break for it.

There was exactly one other situation where something like this had happened—a brief power outage on the base had resulted in several people’s clocks getting reset, and the few who had purely mechanical clocks had needed to wake up the rest of the team, and they’d forgotten to wake up Scout. They met him halfway, finding him already booking it to try and get there on time, and had needed to collectively “forget” to call in that he wasn’t there on time, letting him show up a few minutes late (and promptly wheedling assorted favors out of him to continue to “forget”).

Spy left, and the rest of the team returned to regular everyday conversation, some kind of bickering between Demo and Soldier and Engineer, goaded on by Scout and Pyro. Heavy checked the clock every ten seconds or so.

At the six minute mark, an alarm started blaring.

Jolting and jumping and cries of surprise from the rest of the team, sudden very loud noises being one thing that professional killers tended to be bad at handling. Then looks of shock and surprise between all of them. Heavy felt sick.

“You don’t think…?” Demo trailed, and then they were all looking for the readout to figure out which alarm this one was, entirely unfamiliar with it. Heavy felt his blood go cold as he caught a glimpse of it.

“ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT—MEDIC”

In the mad dash to get to the infirmary to investigate, Heavy was among the last to make it, much slower than the rest of the team. When he got there, he found the team arguing with Spy, who was blocking the door and didn’t seem particularly keen on moving any time in the near future.

Until he looked up and saw Heavy, that is. Then he jerked his head, gesturing for Heavy to go inside, continuing to argue with the team, who all seemed to be in varying degrees of worried and alarmed.

Spy shut and barred the door behind them and gestured for Heavy to follow.

The setup from the night before was still there, test tubes and beakers, with the mess already apparently long since cleaned up. There was also a small tray of assorted basic medical equipment that Heavy could never remember the names for. But he noticed that Spy looked shaken just a few moments before he rounded the table and saw—

He was on his knees and speaking frantically before he even processed what he was looking at. Medic, on the ground, lying on his side, limp and lifeless. Heavy shook him by the shoulders, absolute unadulterated panic rising up into his chest and spilling out through his mouth in the form of frantic speaking, borderline shouting.

He demanded answers from Spy several times before he looked up and saw the confusion on Spy’s face and realized he wasn’t speaking English. He forced himself to slow down.

“What happened here?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Spy replied, clearly troubled. “He has a pulse still, and his breathing is fine, but he won’t wake up.”

Heavy looked down at Medic, alarmed beyond reason, and shook him again, shouted his title again. No response.

“I can’t be entirely sure, but despite my setting off that particular alarm, I don’t think that this was foul play, _mon ami_,” Spy said grimly, putting a hand on Heavy’s shoulder.

Heavy shot him a confused look, and Spy moved to carefully pick up something from the table—a syringe.

“I found this next to him,” he said, tilting it in his hand. “I am not presently sure what was in it. But if I had to guess… I think he might’ve injected himself with it.”

Heavy felt horror gnawing at him, biting a gaping hole into his gut. Because that wasn’t _like_ Medic. He didn’t often test things on himself. His Medigun and other such implements, yes. But for other things, he always went to the rest of the team. And Heavy didn’t even know what any of this stuff on the table _was_.

And then he realized the worst part of all of this. Whenever there was an emergency like this, on or off the field, during work or during leisure time, in any situation at all, Medic was the one who tended to solve it. Sometimes with the help of the Engineer, or Demoman, or Heavy, depending on what the situation called for, but he was always the one there to fix it, to think things through and find a solution—often unorthodox, but always effective.

And now that Medic was the one hurt, who would be the one to help them?

* * *

Miss Pauling showed up within the hour, and was apparently given the run-down on what had happened. It was agreed between Spy and Heavy that their story would be that the syringe had been found several feet away from Medic on the floor and that Spy “very much suspected foul play”, just in case Medic had indeed made some kind of misstep himself that he could get in trouble for. Miss Pauling then apparently promised to investigate and get back to them on it. She apparently offered to find some other medical professional to help them, but admitted that it would probably take at least a day to get someone to the base, and Spy had turned down the offer.

Over the course of the first three hours, the rest of the team had all dispersed and gone to do other things. Medic had been moved to one of the cots he kept stored away in a half-hearted “ward”, and the Engineer and Demo combined had managed to fiddle and figure their way through finding and using some of the more basic medical equipment, and had hooked Medic up to a heartbeat monitor after the fifth time in twenty minutes that someone became convinced that he was dead, unable to feel his pulse or see his breathing.

Soldier had made a point, once the chaos had died down a little. Had pointed out that really, they could send Medic through Respawn and that would potentially solve this problem. But the Engineer hadn’t looked so sure, and so Heavy had immediately and firmly protested the idea until it was dropped again.

No further conversations needed to take place to determine that Heavy would be the one to stick around and wait for Medic to wake up.

Heavy ended up grabbing one of his books from the bookshelf that he’d previously left in the lab, still sitting there at the bedside but at least having something to occupy his mind while he waited so he wouldn’t go entirely crazy. For the most part he tended to get lost in his reading, and time often slipped by in the blink of an eye, but this time he found himself looking up every few minutes or so regardless, eyes darting up for a moment either to the heartbeat monitor or to Medic himself.

It was unsettling. He was glad they’d set up the monitor, because otherwise Heavy would surely be checking his breathing every few minutes. He was pale, almost sickly-looking, and his dark circles beyond pronounced. He looked like a corpse, almost. The sight of him like that shook Heavy deeply, more deeply than he could or would ever admit.

Around midday, Demo dropped by to check up on them, and to readjust the heartbeat monitor. At some point, the Engineer stopped by to bring Heavy something to eat, and to check for any updates. There were none. Medic hadn’t moved.

Heavy needed to get up to turn on a light when the sun finally set, and to pick up a different book. To pace for a little while. He fed the birds, made sure they had fresh water. But then he sat back down, forced himself to take a few deep breaths, to stay calm. Medic’s heartbeat was steady, as was his breathing. He wasn’t getting any worse. He just needed to be patient.

Heavy glanced up at the heartbeat monitor an hour later, squinting suspiciously, watching as it started picking up speed a bit. The number on the screen slowly started ticking up, and Heavy felt his concern rising alongside it. He hesitated for a while before closing his book and setting it aside, unsure of exactly what to do. After a moment he went with his gut instinct, leaning forward and gently shaking Medic on the shoulder.

“Doktor?” he asked, working hard to keep his voice level. He swallowed hard when he heard the monitor pick up even further. “Medic?” he tried again, shaking a bit harder, volume rising slightly.

Almost all at once, a shift, a movement, a change in Medic’s expression. Then Medic seemed to be fighting hard to open his eyes, to move, to sit up.

“_Was? Was is los?_” he managed, words slurring together and tumbling awkwardly as he blinked a few times, visibly disoriented. He seemed to be trying to shift his arms, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

“Medic?” Heavy asked again, shocked beyond words to see Medic moving.

A quiet scoff from Medic. “_Ja, ja_, what? What is going on?” he asked, sounding oddly exasperated, still trying to move. “What do you want?”

Heavy forced himself to blink, to respond. “You’re awake,” he observed, not quite able to string words together just yet.

“I’m awake,” Medic agreed, even as he swayed, blinked hard, “what did you need? What is wrong?”

“Wrong?” Heavy asked, confused even further.

“Yes, it’s all you people say, “Medic, Medic”, over and over, it’s infuriating,” the doctor rambled, words tumbling a bit again, and he managed to get a hand to Heavy’s arm, pushing on it and heaving himself up just a bit. “What is it? What did you need help with?”

“No, no, no help,” Heavy assured quickly, and moved to push on Medic’s shoulders. “Doktor should lay back down and rest. He is not well.”

“I’m _fine_,” Medic said flippantly, even as he fell like a sack of potatoes at the lightest push, and couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open. “I’ll be fine. I’m just tired.”

“Rest more,” Heavy insisted, worry creeping back into view. “Doktor… does not remember?”

“What do…?” Medic started, and trailed for a few moments, drifting, before shaking himself what small amount he was able. “What? What do you mean?”

Heavy went to explain, but then he observed the crease in Medic’s brow, the cold sweat beading his face, the paleness of him, and he backtracked. “Nevermind. Later. Is Doktor comfortable?”

Medic seemed to think it over. “Yes. Cold, I suppose,” he amended. He squinted up at Heavy for a moment. “I’m… in a bed?”

“Yes. But it is night time. Go to sleep,” Heavy urged, even if he didn’t want to, even if he wanted Medic to jump to his feet and get right back to normal. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy, and that Medic needed rest, now.

Medic nodded distractedly, then shook his head. “No, no, I have work to do,” he protested weakly.

“First,” Heavy tried, scrambling to think of something. “Er… count backward from twenty.”

Medic huffed, and seemed to try to roll his eyes. “Fine,” he sighed, and only got to thirteen before he was out like a light.

Heavy snapped his fingers once or twice to see if Medic would react, and he didn’t, at which point he stood and went to find a teammate.

He found Spy, luckily, and quickly relayed what information he could. Medic had woken up briefly, and was too disoriented to answer any questions before he passed back out again. Spy nodded, looking a little relieved, and promised to update the rest of the team in case Heavy wanted to go and keep watch some more. Heavy thanked him.

Hours later, Medic stirred again, this time sitting up fully and starting to feebly fight his way free of his blankets for a few moments before he even managed to start speaking, but Heavy urged him to stay still, gently asked again if he remembered anything and got a non-answer in response, incoherent murmuring. He managed to get at least a full sentence out of him, Medic complaining that he was hungry. Heavy assured him that he would go get something to eat, and that it was very important that he stay put, and all but ran to the kitchen to dig up something and to return with it. He made the fastest sandwich of his entire life, and was back within ten minutes, but Medic was out again by the time he got back regardless.

Sometime around two in the morning, Heavy jolted awake from a doze at the sound of movement. Medic had sat up fully, and his eyebrows were drawn together, and his hair was sticking up oddly. It was more of a mess than Heavy had maybe ever seen him in outside of battle, and in battle it was usually an issue of blood and burns and mud and wounds, not bedhead and general dishevelment.

Medic squinted hard at him when he moved. “Heavy?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes,” Heavy said quickly, sitting up straight.

“…Where are my glasses?” he asked. His voice was rough, but much less weak than before.

Heavy was quick to find them and pass them over, and Medic put them on, only fumbling a little bit in the process. “Doktor is hungry?” Heavy asked hesitantly, leaning and reaching for where he’d set the sandwich nearby. Medic nodded, and took it with only mild confusion, eating without protest. Heavy noted the way he seemed to wince, and quickly deduced that he was probably thirsty, and got up to fetch a cup of water. Medic took that as well, draining it in one go and then wolfing down the remainder of the sandwich with no further delay.

He set the plate aside, frowning, glancing around the infirmary. Heavy could see the cogs turning in his head. “…What time is it?” Medic asked.

Heavy leaned to try and get a glance at a clock. “Almost three,” he finally said.

Medic frowned harder. “…And what day is it?”

Heavy sighed, running his hand over his own head, slumping a little. “You were asleep for a full day,” he said, understanding what Medic really meant by that question.

A vague kind of alarm from Medic.

“What happened?” Heavy asked, cutting right to the point. After nearly a full day of panic, he thought he was entitled to be a little blunt.

Medic examined the situation for a few more moments, thought for a few more moments, before he sighed, apparently giving in. “Apparently, a failed experiment,” he said bitterly.

Heavy frowned.

Medic shifted, took stock of his surroundings briefly. Pushed his glasses up. “…You do not seem terribly panicked,” he observed.

“Doktor has already woken up twice,” Heavy said carefully.

Medic cringed. “Ugh. Did I say anything?”

“No, mostly… too disoriented to speak,” Heavy said. “What happened?”

“Well. What I was _attempting_ to do, and presumably did a very bad job of, was make a sort of… anesthesia. Something that would be extremely effective at knocking someone entirely unconscious into a very deep sleep, which they could then wake up from eight or so hours later, perhaps more or less time depending on dosage.”

Heavy nodded, following along as best he could and trying to piece together the rest. “…And Doktor tested this on himself?” he asked.

“_Ja_, to make the long story short.”

“Why? Why did you make this?” Heavy asked, still confused, because Medic had said multiple times before that he thought anasthesia for surgeries was unnecessary when he had the Medigun.

Medic’s jaw tightened. “Not important,” he said.

Heavy sighed hard, dragging a hand down over his face. “Doktor, you have a badly scared team,” he said, sharp and short. “All very frightened by this. We deserve real explanations.”

Medic looked at him for a long few moments, the cogs in his head whirring too fast for most to keep up with, but Heavy was fairly sure he could follow along once he understood a few more things.

First, that Medic was looking a little bit better, once he woke up. Better than normal. Less ragged, even though he clearly would be needing a shave at some point.

Second, that Medic had seemed genuinely surprised for a second to hear that the team had been worried about him.

Third, that the expression on his face could be described as guilt, which Heavy had only seen him wear exactly once before, twenty-four hours prior.

Medic broke eye contact, glared off out into the infirmary. The doves were rattling a tray of surgical equipment across the room.

“I was attempting to make a sleeping aid,” Medic finally admitted.

A few moments to make a series of connections before Heavy spoke. “…For yourself?” he asked, just for clarification’s sake.

“_Ja_. For myself.”

“Doktor is having trouble sleeping?” he asked, more gently now.

“Stop that,” Medic said, tone absolutely biting, and Heavy recoiled a little bit. Medic promptly exhaled, eyes falling closed, that guilt back full force. “I… I meant… just, don’t use that tone. I do not need to be babied, I am a fully grown man. Yes, I have been… having trouble sleeping. And it began to interfere with my work.”

“What is problem?” Heavy asked, careful to keep his tone even.

“I am unable to stay asleep for any period of time. Falling asleep is fairly easy, but once I’m out I am woken almost immediately.”

His tone was beyond the clear-cut clinical kind that he wore when explaining most things, it was outright cold, derogatory even, and Heavy felt indignant for a moment before realizing the tone wasn’t directed at him. Medic was glaring down at his own hands.

“I understand all of the symptoms I am experiencing, and why they are there, and what is causing them, but still I…” Medic visibly forced himself to take a breath as his voice started rising. When he spoke again, it was even and level. “I understand now what I did wrong, and rest assured, it will not happen again.”

“How bad were sleeping troubles to make this happen?” Heavy asked, still incredulous.

Medic’s shoulders sank. He continued looking everywhere but at Heavy. “I have not gotten more than a total of seven hours of sleep per week for the last month,” he said quietly.

Heavy’s blood ran cold.

Medic sighed, pushing his glasses up to knead at the bridge of his nose viciously. “And this has happened before, is not terribly unusual, but also I’ve been feeling extremely nauseous at all hours of the day and so I haven’t been eating more than one or two meals at most, and being hungry makes my mood flare unexpectedly, and so I dive into work to sort through it, and then I’ve missed out on more meals and more sleep and I’m—“

Medic cut himself off cold. Glared off at nothing, into the darkness of the infirmary, with more blatant and fiery disgust and anger than Heavy had ever seen him in, even in the worst of his temper in the height of battle. It was a little frightening.

But that fear was overshadowed by concern, because his eyes were shining, tears more visible against the contrast of the bags under Medic’s eyes.

“I’m just… tired, Heavy,” Medic admitted, like a Herculean effort, worse than pulling teeth, worse than open heart surgery, and it made sense that it was so cleary difficult for Medic to say, because Heavy realized all at once that it was the first time Medic had ever said something like that.

Medic never complained. Chided, of course, and lectured, and occasionally berated, but never complained. Not of hunger, or fatigue, or heat, or cold, or anything at all. Not when he was bleeding profusely from bullet wounds or shrapnel, not when the team ate all of the food at dinner without leaving any for him because he hardly ever showed up anyways, not when it was clear he’d been woken up twice and three times during the night to deal with injuries from various shenanigans.

He was always there to fix their problems, to check in on the team, to notice one too many yawns, or unnatural flushes as symptoms to fevers or overheating in the desert sun, or stumbling, or having apparently forgotten to eat breakfast. He kept everyone in shape, kept the whole team on top of taking care of themselves as best they could, and made up the extra distance for them when they slipped. Gave them modified hearts and healed their wounds and chided them to make sure to eat dinner and get their sleep and wash their hands and to smoke and drink just slightly less.

And Heavy realized, all at once, that they never gave him that courtesy in return.

He, Heavy, was there to listen to Medic, to hear him talking about things, to be there for him in many ways emotionally, but when was the last time he’d asked about Medic’s well-being outside of a cursory greeting?

He pieced together all at once Medic not showing up for breakfast or dinner, and missing lunch during battle to hunt down teammates who’d been downed and needed help. Medic always staying up so late working and getting up so early to get ready for work on time.

He was fairly certain that Medic would literally give an arm and a leg to any teammate who so much as _asked_. And none of them ever so much as given him the courtesy or wondering if he was alright. Because they assumed that Medic was somehow managing to take care of himself, on top of his taking care of all eight of them.

Heavy leaned in and pulled Medic into a hug.

Medic stiffened, clearly confused, unsure of what to do. “…Heavy?”

“I am sorry, Doktor,” Heavy rumbled, throat feeling a little tight. “I am sorry that this happened. We… help to figure something out,” he promised. “We are a team, we will look out for each other. And Doktor looks after all of us the most, and so we should look after Doktor the most. Credit to team. We will help. _I_ will help.”

“…Thank you, Heavy,” Medic said slowly, a weight to it, and managed an awkward sort of pat, as if trying to comfort him, still, even then, waking up in a hospital bed of sorts with no memory of the previous day.

He finally pulled back, glancing Medic up and down. “Is there anything Doktor needs?” he asked.

Medic shook his head, adjusted his glasses again. “I can handle myself now, I think,” he said with an air of finality, starting to free himself from the blankets he’d been lumped under.

Heavy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a hard look. Medic faltered. Deflated.

“…Water would be appreciated,” he mumbled, and Heavy nodded, standing to go get him a cup.

* * *

Heavy was the one to update Miss Pauling the next day, to tell her that Medic had woken up at some point but would be needing an additional day to recover. She hadn’t asked any further questions, just nodding and handing him a thin file to give to Spy when he had the chance.

He did so an hour later at breakfast.

He first handed the folder off to Spy, who thanked him, then went to go get himself a plate of food. Medic had dozed off again at some point, and it would probably be a good idea to eat while he had the chance. As much as Medic kept insisting that he could do things on his own, when he’d briefly gone to get a change of clothes he’d wobbled severely and gone very pale the moment he stood up and tried to walk, so Heavy was fairly certain he’d be spending another day in the infirmary helping him with things while he recovered a bit more. And to be honest, the chairs in the infirmary were extremely uncomfortable, so he’d appreciate sitting somewhere else for a while.

Once he sat down, he was bombarded with questions by the rest of the team.

“Has he woken up yet?” Scout asked, curious.

“Do you know what happened?” Demo asked, concerned.

“Anythin’ we can do to help?” Engie asked, earnest.

Heavy hesitated in a couple of ways, partially because he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer, partially because he wasn’t entirely sure with what all Medic would want him to say. He confirmed that Medic had woken up a few times, for a few minutes the first times then for a few hours the next. He made brief eye contact with Spy before explaining that they were going to continue telling Miss Pauling they didn’t know what happened, and that Medic knew that as well, but that in reality he’d made a mistake with an experiment and he’d need another day or so to recover.

On the last question, he hesitated for quite some time before answering.

“If any help is needed, I will ask,” Heavy said slowly. “But… maybe we need to be better to Doktor.”

Sounds of confusion and question from the table at large.

“Medic always works very hard,” Heavy elaborated carefully. “Takes care of team, keeps us safe and healthy. Makes sure we are all okay. Maybe… we could be better at watching out for Doktor too.”

A few nods and sounds of agreement. “Not sure he’d take too well to us nagging him, though,” Engie said.

“Maybe no nagging. But… letting him know we can notice he is not well, and that we want him to be well,” Heavy elaborated. “Heavy can do nagging.”

“So, what’s the story we’re tellin’ Miss P? Still the, uh, the old ‘whoops, someone tried to kill him, ain’t that a shame’ thing?” Scout asked.

“Yes.”

“If you would like, we can take turns in bringing food to the infirmary,” Spy offered. “If you do not particularly feel like being there the entire day.”

“Will be there to keep Doktor company anyways, but maybe it will help to have team stopping by,” Heavy agreed.

They started sorting out a schedule for that, of who would be dropping by when, inventing some excuses for people to come by the infirmary and kick around for a while to keep things interesting. A few minutes in, Pyro dropped by to join planning, and Sniper showed up half an hour later and was talked at for about twenty minutes before he managed to extract himself long enough to at least grab his coffee.

And over the course of the rest of the day, Medic’s continuous complaints about being bedridden eventually started to fade away under the weight of the team’s shenanigans. The Engineer dropped by and they talked over some more Medigun and Dispenser redesigns for quite a while, and Spy brought by a newspaper at some point and they had a lengthy discussion in German about assorted European politics and recent news. Different pairs of teammates dropped by a few times over the course of the day with assorted food and drink, Demo and Scout doing so after apparently using their time off to drive all the way to civilization to get some bad diner food, and bringing back leftovers for Heavy and Medic.

Shortly after Soldier and Pyro stepped out, having dropped off an earnest and surprisingly successful attempt at them baking apple pie for the two of them to get a taste of, Medic looked over at Heavy, a little suspicious. “So what exactly did you tell them?” he asked outright.

Heavy blinked, felt himself flushing a little. “…What do you mean?” he asked anyways.

Medic rolled his eyes. “Clearly you told them something. The entire team didn’t simply unanimously decide to come by to try and do whatever all of this is.”

Heavy shrugged after a moment’s consideration. “Just that all day I would be here to help if Doktor needed it,” he said, which wasn’t _untrue_, just not the full truth.

And Medic seemed to suspect that, but he didn’t say anything, just tucking back into the food.

At some point, Medic took a brief nap. Not brief in the usual sense, brief in that he shook awake with no small amount of thrashing and panic about twenty minutes into falling asleep. He waved off Heavy’s concern and tried to go back to sleep again, and it repeated. A third time. A fourth time.

By then, it was getting late. Medic said he promised that he wouldn’t get up and do any moving around or anything if Heavy wanted to go and sleep in his own room instead of sleeping in a chair again.

But he hesitated when he said it, and Heavy couldn’t help but ask about it.

It was with great difficulty and a lot of careful wording that Medic admitted that usually he didn’t even get those twenty minutes of sleep before he woke up again. Usually it was five or ten at most, and then he couldn’t fall back asleep again. But he felt mildly comforted in some ways because he knew—

And that was where he cut himself off, refused to say more for a long few minutes. When he finally spoke again, he wouldn’t look at Heavy, head tucked forward, staring very pointedly at nothing.

He finally admitted, he felt mildly comforted in some ways because he knew that he was safe, with Heavy there.

Heavy didn’t need to hear any more than that. He pulled over one of the gurneys and slept on that for the night, and every night after that until Medic was fully, entirely recovered.

* * *

“Doktor?” Heavy called, pushing into the infirmary and glancing around. “Team time.”

“_Ja, ja,_ one moment,” Medic said, waving him off with one hand, the other pouring birdseed into the little feeder he kept for his doves. He brushed his thumb over Archimedes’s head to dislodge some kind of dust or mess, tsk’ing him quietly, before setting the bird down and scooping up his coat on the way to the door. “What is breakfast?”

“Engineer makes, er… toast, with egg and cinnamon,” Heavy explained, looking down at the food in question, the name escaping him momentarily as he picked up the Medigun and starting to walk, Medic on his heels.

“French toast?” Medic supplied, moving to pull on his coat, glancing backwards to check that the infirmary door closed behind him.

“No, it was Engineer who made it, not Spy,” Heavy joked, and was promptly scoffed at and elbowed, Medic falling into step beside him. Once Medic had done up his coat, Heavy handed him the slices, and Medic ate them quickly and efficiently, brushing his hands off before he took the Medigun from Heavy. “Did Doktor get enough sleep?”

“More than usual,” Medic agreed, sounding pleased.

“Good,” Heavy nodded, holding the door for Medic as they got to the hall to the locker rooms. “Sleep is important.”

“I know, Heavy,” Medic said, rolling his eyes a little, “I do not need to be babied.”

“Is not babying, Doktor is not a baby,” Heavy protested. “Is caring about teammate and friend.”

Medic rolled his eyes again, but despite his best efforts, Heavy just barely caught a glimpse of a smile on his face, and that was enough.

“Hey, Doc! Sup, Heavy!” Scout called as they entered the locker room, and the rest of the team called out similar greetings. Heavy just nodded at them and Medic gave a small wave as he went to get the rest of his equipment, Heavy splitting off to do the same.

“How’re you doin’, Doc?” Engie asked cheerfully, lacing up his boots.

“Fine, fine,” Medic said. “Yourself?”

“Alright. Enjoy the breakfast?”

“It was good, although I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever get used to how much butter and fat people in America use on everything,” Medic admitted.

“I said the same thing,” Spy chimed in from nearby, startling Heavy slightly, who hadn’t noticed he was there.

“Well, Heavy’s not an American either, and he liked it well enough,” Engie defended, and Heavy nodded his agreement.

“It is more energy to fight better,” Heavy said simply. “Is not a bad thing.”

“It is important to eat healthy foods and get a balanced diet,” Medic said almost mechanically, automatically.

“But it’s more important to eat at all,” Engie pointed out.

Medic didn’t have a good rebuttal for that.

And he didn’t say it out loud, because Heavy knew that to push too far would feel patronizing, but he did notice some things just then, watching Medic calibrating the Medigun. How sharp and clear his focus seemed to be. His dark circles were nearly gone. His face had a healthy amount of color, and his posture was straight but relaxed, almost effortless, and his movements were efficient. And when he looked over at Heavy to check that he was ready to go, his voice was crisp, unwavering, and there was life there behind his eyes. Really, genuinely, life there behind his eyes.

And he knew there would be slumps, next time Medic picked up a project or something went wrong or they had one day of losses too many. But maybe it was worth all this work just to have a moment or two of seeing that life there.

Just maybe.


	48. Scout&Team, Prettyboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: idea: scout gets confused and flustered, because team calls him "pretty boy", but tries to play it off -🦂"
> 
> scout tf2 is a fuckin prettyboy dude he just Is. (short one, no romance, warning for swearing and that’s it)]]

To be totally honest, he wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation. He was sat on a crate a short distance from a chunk of the team, zoned out looking over the tape on his bat and thinking about whether he could get away with trying to adopt a pet again when work was over. But he tuned back in on the last few sentences just enough to process them, and was paying enough attention to properly hear the last two.

“Well, that’s that, then, unless anyone has any complaints,” Engie said.

“Dunno, someone go ask the prettyboy,” Sniper said offhandedly.

Scout looked up, frowning, and saw that almost all eyes were on him. “What?” he asked, confused.

“We were thinkin’ about tryin’ another night out as a team—“ Engie started to explain, but Scout cut him off.

“Nah, nah, what’d _you_ say?” Scout asked, pointing at Sniper.

“…What, me calling you a prettyboy?” Sniper asked, looking a little amused.

Scout blinked, eyebrows furrowed. “…You can’t just use any words in any order you want,” he said, very much confused.

A pause from the team at large. “Lad, you’re telling me you don’t _know?”_ Demo asked, looking equal parts baffled and delighted.

“Know what?”

Snickering from the team at large. “You can’t be serious,” Sniper said firmly. “You’re—_Scout_. You’re absolutely taking the piss. You’re not serious. You _do_ know you’re a bloody prettyboy, right?”

He felt his face heating up. “Like hell I am! How the hell am I a prettyboy?” he challenged.

Sniper gestured at Scout in his entirety as if that should speak for itself. Scout frowned harder.

“Look, lad, you’re the bloody _standard_ for it,” Demo elaborated. “You’re one leather jacket and motorcycle away from me mum warning me off of ya.”

“Not a dad on the planet who’d leave you alone in a room with their daughter,” Sniper nodded.

“Look like you should be peddling cigarettes to the classmates a year behind you whilst combing your hair,” Demo agreed.

“I’m fuckin’ 25, Cyclops,” Scout deadpanned.

“That why you still eat candy bars for breakfast and read comic books?” Sniper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” Scout clipped, rolling his eyes.

“What are we arguing about this time?” Spy asked, walking over along with Heavy to join the rest of the team.

“Yo, Spy, hey,” Scout asked, seeing an out. “Snipes and Cyclops and Hardhat are goin’ off on some bullshit thing—they’re sayin’ I’m a goddamn prettyboy.”

“Right?” Spy asked after a second as if waiting for the part that Scout was confused about.

Laughter from the team. Scout’s face was on fire. “Fuck you guys,” he said decisively, starting to pout.

“Why exactly is it such a bad thing?” Medic asked, rolling his eyes. “Is it not a compliment?”

“Because—“ Scout started to explain, and stopped. Thought for a minute. “Well, because prettyboys are, it’s, I dunno! It just is!”

“Scooter, there’s nothin’ wrong with it,” Engie assured, laughing a little. “If anything, we’d need a prettyboy or two to balance out the general demographic we’ve got on the team, see? Any more bodybuilder types and we’d need to make a darn swimsuit calendar.”

Soldier flexed to demonstrate. He had an excellent point.

Scout thought for a second, brows furrowed. “…So what you’re sayin’ is I should get a leather jacket?”

“And sunglasses,” Demo confirmed, laughing a little.

“Oi,” Sniper complained, hand rising protectively to his own shades.

Another pause for a few seconds. “…Let’s circle back around to that bit you did about the swimsuit calendar,” Scout decided, pointing at Engie. “What are you fuckin’ talkin’ about? Who’s gonna go on that besides Star-Spangled Batshit over here?”

And thus an argument began, and the topic was dropped long enough for Scout to finish sorting some shit out in his own head, at least for a little while. At least until he figured out where he was gonna get some sunglasses.


	49. Engineer&Pyro, Parental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: if you're feeling up to it, maybe some pyro & engie? like parental engie and sad pyro, perhaps?"
> 
> engie, seeing a sad younger teammate: oh i can’t Not dad them  
(a short one, no romance and no warnings)]]

Around the third time he heard an audible sigh from within Pyro’s suit, he was reasonably sure there was something wrong.

Pyro’s scores had been alright all week, and they’d shown up to meals and everything, but they just seemed a little down in the dumps overall. Quieter, less expressive. Not so much noticeable in that they were being unenergetic, more that they were just a little less themselves.

He tried out a couple of things over the course of the week. Scrounged up some outdated blueprints so Pyro would have some “classified” material that needed burning. They did so, but without as much pizzazz and enthusiasm as usual. He fixed up the TV in the rec room to get another few channels. They continued to flip through idly until someone else picked something. He asked if they wanted to have a board game night with the team, and usually they’d be absolutely through the roof excited over something like that, but they hesitantly declined and shut the door.

He was stumped. With all other options exhausted, he broke out the big guns—or rather, a cookbook.

Pyro opened the door on Friday evening and found themselves face to face with the Engineer, holding a plate of cookies and two mugs of hot cocoa.

“Howdy, Firebug,” he greeted, doing his best to sound casual. “Got a minute?”

Pyro let him in, and he sat himself down at their little table, managing to find a place to set down the plate and mugs without squishing whatever craft project Pyro was working on just then—he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it.

“Made some cocoa, did some baking. Thought it might be nice to share and chat a bit, catch up. Been a while since we sat and had a talk,” he said, keeping his tone as light as he could.

Pyro pulled free of their mask, sighing softly and locking their eyes on their own mug. They pulled their hands free of the big bulky gloves that the suit was outfitted with and signed out a quick sentence. “_Not that hungry, but I’ll drink cocoa_,” they agreed.

“So, what’s got you all down in the dumps, Firebug? Never seen you lose your spark this bad,” he asked, deciding to be outright with it.

“_Sorry,_” they apologized quickly, moving to take a tentative sip of their cocoa before starting to blow on it lightly.

“Nothin’ to be sorry about,” Engie assures quickly. “I’m just worried is all. Wondered if maybe it’d help to talk about it a bit, if you’d like.”

Pyro’s hands stayed firmly locked to their mug for a little bit, still just gently blowing on it, not making eye contact—although they rarely did. “Um,” they tried to start aloud, but they gave up right away, sighing again, putting the mug down. “_It’s a lot, and it’s… complicated,_” they seemed to decide, faltering in their motions a few times. “_I don’t really know how to explain_.”

“You can take your time, if you need to,” he assured.

“_It’s also a little bit personal,_” they finally admitted, eyes flickering up to catch his expression for a second before darting back away.

Engie nodded. “Alright, then I won’t press you,” he said, putting his own hands up, more in surrender than to speak. “But you know I’m here to listen if you ever need it.”

“_I know_,” they signed, mouthing the words alongside it and smiling a little, and they picked the mug back up again.

Silence for a few minutes between them, a comfortable kind, before Pyro put their cup back down to sign again.

“_I appreciate you checking up on me_,” they seemed to conclude, movements decisive. “_I think I might actually eat the cookies. In a little while._”

“I oughta get goin’ and let you be anyways,” Engie said, picking up on where Pyro was trying to steer the conversation in a heartbeat. “Got some other things I wanted to do tonight. Hey, but are you doin’ anything else tomorrow? Needed some help with pickin’ a few things up in town.”

Pyro hesitated for a few seconds, clearly thinking over their schedule, before managing a nod, first a cautious one, then a more confident one.

“Alrighty. See you then. Have a good one, get some sleep,” he said, and made sure to close the door behind him, and then went to make a quick phone call or two.

The next day they set out into town, and the Engineer did his best to subtly dodge the questions of where they were going and what they were doing there, and he simplified it down to “picking up something” that was “time sensitive”, and that they’d be getting the usual groceries first. Pyro usually liked going along on grocery runs, grabbing their own cart to fill up with all kinds of baking supplies and junk food and general cavity-inducing sorts of things. And they were already starting to perk up a bit by the time they got to the grocery store, but it plateau’d at some point, and their energy was still clearly pretty low by the time they loaded up the groceries into the back and hopped back into the truck.

“Alright, just one more stop then we can head back,” he said, and saw the way Pyro just nodded distantly, staring out the window.

It was about thirty minutes out of their way, a bit more as the Engineer struggled a bit to remember the directions, but they pulled up at the place regardless, and Pyro elected to wait in the truck while Engie went to pick up the “package”. They seemed a little curious as to what they were doing at a farmhouse of all things, but luckily they didn’t outright ask.

The Engineer returned to the truck with a big paper bag cradled in his arms, and sat down carefully, so carefully that Pyro stopped looking out the window to instead look at what he was being so careful with.

“Alright,” Engie said, keeping his voice level. “Now you’re gonna have to be gentle with these.”

With the mask in the way, he couldn’t exactly see their expression, but he could picture what it had to be as he gently passed over the bag for Pyro to get a look inside.

“Now that one there,” he explained, pointing at the kitten that was starting to crawl out of the bag and onto Pyro the second it had the chance, “with the green collar, that one’s Sissy, and the one with the blue collar’s Lucky. They’re brother and sister, just eight weeks old now, only two that are orange like their momma. All the rest were tabbies.”

Pyro seemed to be working extremely hard not to literally burst with excitement, both paralyzed and elated by the two kittens starting to scale their suit curiously.

“Now you’re gonna have to be the one to do most of the taking care of the things,” he warned, putting on what some of the team called his Lecture Tone that he often used in team meetings when they were all acting up. “These are gonna be indoor cats, and you’re gonna need to make sure it stays that way. And you can’t let ‘me anywhere near the infirmary, lord knows the Doc will dump these two on the side of the interstate if they so much as _look_ at his doves.”

Pyro nodded along excitedly, hands flapping a little bit as they struggled to contain their elation, and Engie heard a little gasp from within the suit as one of the kittens meowed in the tiniest little voice he’d ever heard in his life.

“I already got pet food and beds and all that, I think for now they can either sleep in your room or in the workshop, depending on how well they take to the noise, but hopefully with these two around we won’t need to worry so much about the mouse problems we keep having,” he continued, fighting down a smile as Pyro pushed their mask up to press a little kiss to the head of one of the kittens, who was surprisingly sporting about the whole thing. “I have a toy or two as well, but you can buy more if you’d like once we’ve dropped ‘em off and let them settle in.”

Pyro nodded enthusiastically, scooping up Lucky as he teetered on their shoulder precariously and nearly fell, cradling the two kittens safely in their arms. “Thank you,” they managed, voice hushed even as it threatened to bubble over, and they really did look close to tears.

“Been thinkin’ about this for a while, but you moping around lately was the last straw,” he said. He moved to start the truck again. “Got hold of ‘em?”

Pyro nodded.

“Alrighty then. Let’s see how the fellas take to our newest teammates, huh?” he joked, and then they were off.


	50. Sniper/Scout, Sniper Cries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Hi! I love your fics and i was wondering if you would you write a speeding bullet fic where the sniper for some reason cries and scout is a good boyfriend and comforts him? Your writing is a life saver honestly"
> 
> sometimes people other than scout get hurt and need comforting ok there’s nothing strange about that, nothing at all  
(warnings for mild swearing and, well, crying)]]

For maybe the first time in his life, Scout took a second to shut up and take stock of the situation before he jumped into it.

Sniper sat at the cramped little table in the camper, elbows on the surface, face in his hands, crumpled forward like weathering a dust storm. He didn’t look up when Scout entered, just told him “Bugger off, bad time” in a voice that was a bit more hoarse than usual, a bit more fierce.

The lights were off in the camper, leaving it almost dark with only a small amount of light filtering through the curtains on the windows with the approaching sunset, and there was what looked like Sniper’s dinner in the process of being made, half-done and left sitting there on the meager countertop space unfinished.

And Scout blinked, confused, seeing one more detail that was out of place—Sniper’s shooting glasses, there on the floor of the camper, broken, lenses shattered and frame badly bent.

Scout carefully shut the door behind himself. “Snipes, what happened?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“I said it’s a bad time. Bugger off,” Sniper repeated, more vehemently, but his voice was rough around the edges in a way that made Scout’s brows furrow further.

“…I, Snipes, I’m not gonna do that. Clearly something’s up,” he said outright.

Sniper sunk further.

Scout shifted on his feet, looking down at the shades again. “I mean, what happened to those? How’d they break?” he asked.

“Had ‘em hung on my shirt, they fell off, I stepped on them,” Sniper said, tone extremely snappish. “And now I’m—I’m in a bloody temper, so you ought to bugger off before I start yelling at you.”

Scout carefully sidestepped the mess to stand next to Sniper, putting a hand on his shoulder, wincing a little at the way Sniper crumpled further under the weight of it. “Well, before you yell could you maybe talk?” he asked, voice quiet.

“It’s—it’s just—“ Sniper started to say, then exhaled heavily, shakily. “It’s just a pair of glasses, it shouldn’t have me this bloody _upset_. None of this should be making me upset.”

“None of what?” Scout asked, confused, getting that feeing that somewhere along the line his brain had skipped over a few words and suddenly couldn’t see the picture, except this time he wasn’t sure it was his fault.

“This! Any of this!” Sniper snapped, gesturing jerkily towards the camper and, Scout suspected, the larger world, then his head was in his hands again. “I’m making a big bloody fuss over absolutely nothing. Just little _nothing_ sorts of things.”

“What things specifically?” Scout asked.

“Breaking my glasses, making a fool of myself every now and then on the field, the blokes switched the coffee back to this garbage we used to drink and stopped drinking because it’s _awful_, sand in my boots, sunburn, you bloody well name it,” Sniper listed, tone clipped. “And all the yelling on the field and the—the shrapnel and explosions, and, and everything is—this shouldn’t get to me. None of it should.”

“Well… maybe it’s not that none of it should,” Scout said slowly, “but all of it does.”

Sniper finally looked up at him, confusion writ across his face. His eyes were a little red.

“Like, you can only put up with so much bullshit. Stuff keeps whackin’ at you again and again and, I dunno, it just… eventually with enough stuff goin’ wrong, it’s…” Scout trailed hesitantly, “I just, I guess somethin’s gotta give.”

Sniper looked at him, and there was the slightest shift in his expression, in a direction Scout hadn’t really seen it take before.

Scout looked down at the broken shades on the ground, back over at him. “Y’know, sometimes when this kinda stuff happens to me I try and feel better by just, like, really leaning into being pissed about it,” he tried. “Think that would help?”

Sniper looked a little confused again. “…How d’you do that?” he asked outright.

“Like…” Scout said, looked down at the shades again. “Like, man, it’s complete total bullshit that those got broke. What the fuck, man. That’s so stupid.”

Sniper seemed to catch on, because he looked down at the mess too and spoke a second later. “Made a bloody mess, gonna take ages to clean up. Bloody nonsense.”

“Yeah,” Scout agreed, putting a little more enthusiasm behind it. “Fuckin’ bullshit. Who the hell do those glasses think they are? What, we get shot on the daily and we’re totally fine, but these—these little bitch glasses just gonna fuckin’ break because you drop ‘em?”

“And step on them,” Sniper added.

“Aw, fuck that, we get stomped all the time! Just, like, less literally. Fuckin’, get your shit together, glasses.”

“Grow up, glasses,” Sniper agreed, and he was starting to grin a little.

“Grow up! Y’know what Heavy would call those glasses? And be totally right about? He’d say they’re _babies_. These glasses can fuck off.”

“Bugger off, glasses. Who needs you anyways?” Sniper said firmly, and he was grinning in earnest. Scout nodded.

A beat of silence.

“This feels silly,” Sniper admitted, expression falling.

“Yeah,” Scout shrugged. “But hey. Do you feel a little better?”

Sniper hesitated. “A little. I feel… less… less stuck.”

“Yeah?” Scout prompted.

“I…” Sniper kneaded at his palm with the thumb of his opposite hand, dropping eye contact for a moment. “…I think I’ve just been…”

Scout waited for Sniper to sort through his own head enough to speak.

“…I’ve just been stressed is all,” he murmured. “And… can’t…”

Sniper’s exhale a few moments later was shaky, and Scout wasted no time pulling him to his feet and into a hug, tucking his chin up into Sniper’s shoulder, Sniper automatically slouched a bit further to allow it.

His next few exhales were shaky too, and he squeezed Scout pretty hard as he returned it. “Bloody… ridiculous thing to get upset over—“

“Hey,” Scout cut in, quietly but firmly. “It’s okay.”

“I’m a grown adult man—I make money _assassinating_ people for a living—and here I am getting this frustrated over _nothing_—“

“It’s not nothing,” Scout assured, squeezing tighter. “It’s like, eight hundred things at once. And what’s wrong with being upset anyways?”

Sniper was quiet.

Scout exhaled, thinking carefully to find his next few words, well aware that they would be important. “You… you know I don’t care. All that—that dumb shit people would say, it don’t matter to me. You don’t gotta be tough or serious or any of that dumb shit when you’re with me. I’m not gonna laugh at you or make fun or whatever. Because I’m your boyfriend, and that means you’re _my_ boyfriend, and I love you. Even the messy parts. _Especially_ the messy parts. I’m not dating you because you’re some big cool assassin dude, I’m dating you because you’re a real person, and—and I love you.”

He felt tension having slowly risen in Sniper’s shoulders, his breathing shaking a little bit. Finally, as he stopped talking, he felt Sniper’s shoulders jump, hitch, as his breath caught for a second on an inhale.

“It’s okay,” Scout assured quietly.

That’s when Sniper started crying, and even with Scout’s assurances it was a choked, messy sort of thing, Sniper clearly trying to wrestle it down despite himself, the instinct too deeply ingrained to resist. Scout just held on tight, rocked him slowly enough to keep from being distracting, inhaled, exhaled.

Somewhere, quietly, between gasps like a drowning man and choked noises from the back of his throat, Sniper managed to say an “I love you” back, and Scout squeezed him just to make sure he knew he heard.

It took about fifteen minutes to get it all out of Sniper’s system—the only reason Scout knew that was because the clock was in his line of sight and he found himself watching it tick over Sniper’s shoulder. But even after Scout was pretty sure the worst of the tears were over, Sniper kept holding on to him, for long, silent minutes.

He heard Sniper start gearing up to say something, head shifting slightly, breathing shifting slightly. He cut in before he could get to it.

“Snipes, if you start apologizing I’m gonna kill you,” he noted.

“…Right,” Sniper said, and was quiet for a bit longer.

Scout went to pull back, and Sniper didn’t let go for a few moments, wiping off his face on his sleeve before he let Scout get a look at him. Once he’d pulled back, Scout immediately leaned up and gave Sniper a peck on the cheek, ignoring the fact that it was still damp. “Feel any better?” Scout asked.

Sniper nodded sheepishly, glancing away, as uncomfortable with eye contact as ever. “A good bit,” he agreed.

“Good,” Scout said, giving him a smile.

Sniper glanced down at the broken glasses on the ground, and his expression fell a bit, then at the dinner he hadn’t gotten to properly making, and it fell further. Scout tried to think fast.

“If you wanna pick up the glass, I can do dinner,” he suggested. Sniper nodded, looking a little relieved.

Twenty minutes later, halfway into eating, Sniper’s eyes were less puffy and his expression less wiped, and he continued to look better as he continued eating. Scout worked really hard not to smile and point it out, but his mood had improved enough that Sniper brought it up himself.

“…Think one reason I got that upset was just that I was hungry,” Sniper said out of the blue, and Scout pretended to think about it for a second before nodding and making noises of agreement around his mouthful. “Didn’t think I was that hungry, didn’t, er… notice I s’pose.”

“Tired too?” Scout asked gently.

Sniper took stock of himself for a few moments, glancing off to one side as he chewed. His eyebrows furrowed. “…Yeah, actually. A bit,” he confirmed.

“Wanna just fuckin’, turn in early?” Scout suggested. “Like, nine PM bedtime?”

“I’m not _that_ old yet,” Sniper scoffed. “Besides, I’ve… got laundry and whatnot, all sorts of chores I’ve been putting off.”

“I’ll help you with ‘em, I’m all caught up and you always help me out anyways. And, hey, it can make up for how I always make you stay up late all the time,” Scout shrugged, grinning. “This time you gotta go to bed early or else.”

“Or else what?” Sniper asked, quirking an eyebrow, the motion much more trackable with his face bare.

“Or else, uh… I _won’t_ help you with chores tomorrow.”

“Oh no,” Sniper said, tone deadpan sarcastic.

“…Or else I… I dunno, I’ll think of something later.”

“Will you? You’re sure you won’t just forget?” Sniper drawled.

Scout huffed, pouting a little. “C’mon, Snipes, please?” he asked, and maybe he put a _little_ bit of puppydog eyes into play, but only because it worked, and Sniper nodded a few seconds later.

Scout ended up cleaning up their plates as well, and did his best to give Sniper all kinds of hugs and pecks on the cheek and on the mouth as they got ready for bed, Scout once again just stealing one of Sniper’s shirts to wear (“Just buggering keep a pair of pajamas over, you bloody menace,” Sniper chided for the hundredth time, but his shirts smelled like him so once again Scout just shrugged and said he’d try and remember). Then they were there getting comfortable in the bed, and Scout moved to hold Sniper close despite Sniper idly complaining that they’d both get overheated and sweat to death during the night.

Before he managed to drift off, Scout did take a minute to prop himself up and look down at Sniper. Sniper blinked his eyes open and looked at him, having also not quite fallen asleep, curious but otherwise neutral.

“I meant it,” Scout said. “I wasn’t—all that stuff I said earlier. I meant it. I wasn’t just saying all that because you were upset or whatever. You can talk to me about whatever, and I love you. Seriously.”

Sniper’s lip quirked, and he looped an arm up over Scout’s shoulders to pull him down into a kiss, and just like he did every time—the dope that he was—Scout absolutely melted into it. When they parted again, Sniper didn’t let him get far, pressing their foreheads together. “I know,” he said. “Love you too.”


	51. Sniper/Scout, Losing 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: scout losing sniper. that's it that's the request (if you're ok with it of course thank you.. . .)"
> 
> sometimes it feels like you people come into my inbox and just sort of tee yourself up to be whacked over the head with a two-by-four and i find it hilarious every single time  
(warnings for offscreen major character death and discussion of mercenary-type things, and hurt with absolutely no comfort at the end)]]

It was strange, because Scout wasn’t a mercenary, not really, not in any way that mattered.

The other guys, for the most part they could bond over being mercenaries back before they joined the team. They’d all travelled some amount, sometimes been hired on to do things with other mercenaries, all had various stories to share. And there were phrases they could say in a stilted tone that the others would furrow their brows and nod their heads sympathetically at, some kind of secret code Scout had never learned except as a second language from talking to them.

So there were some things Scout never really considered to be anything he’d need to worry about. Losing limbs or getting massive scars? They had Medic and the Quick-Fix. Being stabbed in the back? Maybe if Spy was being bitchy again, but they all had to live together and inhabit the same space for the foreseeable future, and there were few gigs as cushy as immortality and immunity from the legal system at large the majority of the time, and there wouldn’t really be any kind of benefit to it as far as Scout could tell. Danger to one’s family? It was part of their contracts that all relatives and loved ones would be protected as long as they were part of the team and for the ten years following their departure.

Dying for real? As long as they were on the base or somewhere near it, that wasn’t a concern.

There were only a few people who went properly off and away from bases for any reason. Heavy when he went home on break, but he was also always off radar and could fend for himself. Spy on missions, but he’d been doing those literally longer than Scout had been alive, so he wasn’t particularly at risk. Sniper when he was hired on for a hit, but he shot at people from the opposite side of the continent anyways, so he wasn’t all that worried about it, especially since the only injury Sniper had ever contracted had been when he’d fallen from his perch and broken his arm like a dumbass, and even then Sniper was more embarrassed than shaken by it.

Sniper tried to have a conversation with him about it a few times. But he also would sometimes Spycheck people randomly on-base, couldn’t sleep with his back facing a door or window, was always strapped when he went into town even when they were in range of the base, slept with a knife nearby, all sorts of other things. He admitted up front that he thought he was probably just being paranoid. But Scout sat through it with him those few times, listened to Sniper explaining that he wouldn’t be upset if Scout moved on from him if he abruptly went missing, even if he wasn’t proven dead. That he would want Scout to move on with his life.

Down the line, there were other conversations too. About what they would do when their contracts ran out. Maybe they’d move in together. Maybe meet each other’s families. Maybe get some pets. One maybe after another, all sorts of theoreticals.

Miss Pauling came back to base personally one day, basically unannounced. Demo dropped by the laundry room where he was working on some chores to tell him she was there and needed to talk to him about something. Scout had pointed at the washing machine and asked if it would be quick, since he didn’t want his clothes to get musty. Demo said he didn’t think so.

Miss Pauling explained the whole situation to him, slowly and clearly, the conference table used for team meetings covered in a light dusting of papers. Explained the date and time that they’d received their last update from Sniper, off on a mission in northern Australia. Explained the date and time that they’d gotten some kind of attempt at contact from Sniper, not when he had an update scheduled, but the contact was cut off several seconds later. Explained where the tracker Sniper had carried—standard procedure for off-base missions—had last pinged before it stopped broadcasting, at roughly the same time that the attempt at communication was made. Explained that on a perfunctory investigation by a contact in a nearby city, they’d found Sniper’s camper van, reduced to a charred, black husk. After a very short amount of time indeed, it was soundly determined that Sniper had been the victim of a car bomb.

He waited through the whole briefing for the part where she told him how bad it was, how long it would be before they could get Sniper back on base again and back in action. As things continued and she got around to telling him what all they’d managed to recover from the remains of the vehicle, he started to realize that Sniper wouldn’t be coming back on base again.

He was granted one week of official leave to travel to Australia for the funeral and to sort through some things. On the first day there, dizzy and disoriented from jet lag, nauseous and uncomfortable in the abrupt change of season, he spent several hours sorting through the meager pile of belongings that they’d managed to get from the van. He first sorted between what things belonged to him—various knickknacks and whatnot that he’d left in there over the years—and what things belonged to Sniper. Then he sorted between what things he would want to keep, what things could be returned to their employer (mostly weaponry and such), and what things should go to Sniper’s parents.

He had to wear a suit to the funeral, and he only owned the one. The first time he’d worn it was for his court date. The most recent time he’d worn it was on a date on Valentine’s Day to a fancy restaurant. Sniper had muddled his way through putting in a reservation a whole four months in advance, and they’d needed to drive almost an hour to get there (even speeding a little bit), and after the dinner they’d spent another hour just wandering around the town and talking and laughing and it was maybe one of the best days of Scout’s life, besides how annoying it was to get into and out of a suit.

And now he was putting it on a short few months later for a funeral.

He met Sniper’s parents in that suit, at a funeral with an empty casket. An upset, distraught elderly couple, who squinted at him and his accent and asked him exactly how he knew their Mickey, a father who’d scowled at him when he averted his eyes and mumbled that he was a friend, a mother who’d looked at him so knowingly and had to reach up quite a way to pat him on the shoulder comfortingly, but who wouldn’t say anything not long later when that father had demanded that he get out, having decided that Scout and any of his other “crazed blood-money coworkers” could stay the hell away from the funeral they’d all earned for his son.

For the last four days of his official leave he went home. Dropped off any of the things that he didn’t need, in his old room. He was reminded of how much he loved his Ma, because she hadn’t asked anything about why he was there, only how long he had until he needed to leave again. All he could think about for the first day was what she would’ve said to Sniper if it was the other way around. The fact that she would’ve needed to reach to pat him on the shoulder.

She asked the first question on the second day, in the morning as Scout leaned against the counter and ate breakfast. He’d left a few things on the table, and she’d seen some of the pictures there, and who was his friend? The one in the sunglasses and the suit? She didn’t want to pry, and knew that he wasn’t allowed to talk about his job or anything, but it was just that she hadn’t seen him smile like that in years.

He told her everything. Of course he did. And maybe he shouldn’t have, because he wasn’t supposed to talk about his job, but he did. And she nodded, and asked a few questions about what she didn’t understand, but by the end of it she didn’t make any comments, say anything derogatory about his choice of date, just pulled him into a hug and said that she was sorry.

He admitted to her, quietly, that some part of him didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. Was sure that he’d somehow been okay, because they couldn’t find a body, so maybe he was okay, maybe he was alive somewhere, maybe he wasn’t really gone, maybe maybe maybe. One maybe after another. And she’d quietly assured him that it was okay. It was okay to believe in that. That maybe that was what would get him through the next however long. But that it was also okay to move on, eventually. As long as he didn’t get stuck.

He wondered, if his own dad was around, if he would’ve tried to kick Sniper out of Scout’s funeral. At least he knew that his Ma wouldn’t have allowed it.

When he got back to base, nobody said anything to him. Nobody asked. They left him alone, for the most part, left him to his own devices. Miss Pauling let him know on the return briefing that they’d tracked down the people that did it, and they’d been dealt with. When pressed, she informed him that all of the members of the group responsible for his murder had been killed.

Scout wasn’t a mercenary, not really, not in any way that mattered. But he wished, desperately, more than he could ever put into words, that he could’ve been the one hired to do it.


	52. Sniper/Scout, Losing 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Okay so that last one with scout losing snipes broke my heart into a zillion pieces so... What if sniper never died? Maybe he was badly hurt and is hiding somewhere... -🐑"
> 
> i really like how you people keep doing this thing where you’re like “hey what if you ripped my whole heart out and stomped on it” then i do because you literally asked and you’re all “owie :( ouch owie :( can i have a band-aid now” like it’s funny every time  
(warnings for mention of firearms and discussion of severe life-threatening injury)]]

His contract expired.

Somewhere along the line—wonder when?—apparently his work had gotten ‘sloppy’. He’d gotten ‘erratic’. So six years after what all happened, when his contract was up to be renewed, Miss Pauling gently urged him to let it expire and to just head home.

It wasn’t like he had a good reason not to. He didn’t particularly get along with any of the team (anymore). A few of them had come and gone—Pyro apparently got reassigned somewhere and was gone overnight, and at some point Demo decided to leave mercenary work altogether to get a real, proper, legally sound job somewhere. Both of them had been replaced.

Their new Sniper wasn’t as polite as—

She was even more of a recluse, although she got along alright with Heavy sometimes. She was also Russian, which probably helped. And Scout felt a little bad about how much he hated her. She couldn’t help what happened. It wasn’t her fault. She was just picking up the baton on this job. Someone had to do it.

Mostly he just ended up avoiding her. And everyone else.

Exactly once he’d tried to take up dating again. Someone had gotten particularly sweet when he was out at a bar, and they’d flirted for a little while, then they’d suggested they both head somewhere else, and that they had a car if he wanted to—

He quietly stammered his way through a refusal. The vague guilt and unease reached a head the second he thought about getting in a car.

He’d needed to sell his car and get a motorcycle instead, at some point. The idea of getting in a vehicle had become an irrational fear, after he’d seen a picture of the wreckage, smelled the acrid smoke on the salvaged belongings.

That was one reason he took a plane home and had all his stuff shipped separately.

That meant that it was a few days of wearing only his old clothes when he got back, waiting for the rest to show up. And those were a little hard to squeeze into, he’d really been a lanky fuck before he became a mercenary.

The only thing he had at home that fit right was the suit, left there hanging in his closet to get eaten by moths.

The suit and the boxes of things were all shoved into the far side of his closet, and they stayed that way. He felt like maybe he wouldn’t ever be ready to look at them again, and in the meantime, they just made him feel guilty.

For the first two months after he got off work, he didn’t really do much. He stayed home, stayed out of trouble. Put his things away, sorted through what he wanted to keep and what he could just get rid of, either selling it or scrapping it if it was just kinda garbage. He tried to catch up with his brothers a little bit, the ones left in Boston still, but he didn’t get very far, feeling weird and disconnected.

After two months, he finally felt bad about Ma constantly tip-toeing around the topic of employment or hobbies (not that he needed to worry about those—he had enough money saved to not worry about much of anything until he was like, eighty), and he started trying to look for work, or maybe just something to keep him busy. For a month or so he looked into becoming a bartender, but the hours were a little weird. He thought about trying to get into doing baseball on some professional level, but he was getting a little old to be going into it for the first time since his late teens and early twenties. He very briefly looked into doing the cartoons for the newspaper—he was pretty good at art by then—before he found out they would require some amount of actual schooling for it.

So he ended up latching onto that, and started heading to the library five or six days a week to spend a few hours there studying to get his GED. His Ma supported him wholeheartedly on it, and got around to telling him, about a month into his new routine, that she was really glad he found something to do, something he wanted, that he’d just seemed so miserable, before, waiting around for something to happen.

Maybe she was right. He _was_ waiting around for something to happen. He got the speech from Miss P—“ten years following your departure from the team, you and anyone nearby you will be kept in the system, and if there’s anyone who tries to bring you harm we’ll catch them before they can, and here’s a phone number to call if anything suspicious happens that you want looked into”. To him, that meant “someone might try and kill you”. So he did stay strapped when he went places, looked over his shoulder, kept an eye on doors and other potential exits.

So when he got back from the library one day and saw a car parked out in front of the house, at least he was prepared.

He thought fast. Kept driving past the house and parked a little ways down the block—he could drive the bike back later, it didn’t matter. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could, pushed it open with his shoulder, pistol drawn and cocked, falling back into old habits maybe a little too easily considering he hadn’t been a mercenary for almost a year and a half.

Voices from the living room—not from the TV, and not Ma on the phone, because he could also hear the TV, and there was a commercial playing that he recognized, one that didn’t involve Ma and a second, much deeper voice.

He steadied his hands, rolled his shoulders, and stepped into the room, leveling his gun directly at the head of the person within.

First he took stock of the fact that Ma was indeed there, sitting on the couch, looking relatively relaxed and entirely unharmed, if surprised to see him there and also with a gun. Then he took stock of the room, saw that there was only one other person here, the one he was pointing a gun at, the one who had slowly raised his hands up to either side of his head. Potentially unarmed, it was hard to tell with his baggy jacket—

Wait a minute.

Scout frowned, squinted, looking over his face a little more closely as realization started creeping into view.

He tried to imagine, for a second. What exactly would seven years do to a guy?

Maybe he’d end up with his hair growing out a lot longer, from close-cut to hanging down around his ears. Maybe with a beard, relatively clean but still a bit messy in some ways. Maybe he’d get new clothes, his eyes would sink a little bit more, would start to crinkle at the corners. More freckles, more spots maybe. Aged, scarred. Maybe he’d be wearing glasses. Maybe, despite all of that, he wouldn’t look all that different at all.

“…’llo, Bilby,” Sniper said quietly, hopefully, voice rough, and maybe he meant to say more, but he didn’t get the chance, because Scout lowered his gun, marched three steps forward, and slapped him clear across the face.

It was a hefty slap. The _smack_ noise was practically ringing, and his hand stung like a bitch, and he’d hit him hard enough to knock his glasses off to clatter across the floor, and his head snapped back at the force of it, and the noise he made was satisfyingly pained.

“Right. Probably deserve that,” he croaked, and maybe he meant to say more, but he didn’t get the chance, because Scout tucked back away his gun, grabbed Sniper by the sides of his head, and kissed him square on the mouth.

It was a hard kiss, hard enough that he got Sniper to do that thing where he made an undignified little squeaky noise of surprise, caught off guard by it. He only melted forward for a second or two before Scout was pulling back away again.

“You fucking piece of shit son of a bitch _cunt_ I’m gonna fucking _kill you_,” Scout practically snarled.

“Jeremy,” his Ma admonished from the couch.

“He’s right,” Sniper said weakly.

“I’m gonna _kill you_,” Scout insisted, just as fiercely. “What the _fuck_ happened to you?!”

“There was a—“ Sniper started explaining, but Scout cut him off.

“Car bomb between 2:45 and 2:50 PM twenty minutes away from the nearest city limits,” he listed off, “I know that, but what—seven _fucking_ years, Snipes!”

“I know,” Sniper said, voice flimsy. “First two years were recovery and physical therapy, next four were trying to get legal papers and apply for a visa to get back into the States again.”

“That bad?” Scout asked, still angry but faltering.

“Needed reconstructive surgery on… most of the left side of my body. Lost some teeth,” he said, and tugged his lip back on one side to show him where three teeth, the three behind the canines, were a slightly different color, then dropped his hand again. “Plenty of scars. Might be, er… missing a lot of those freckles you liked. And… voice comes and goes sometimes. But, Australian miracle medicine, I’m much better than I was.”

“You grew your hair out,” Scout noted next, carding his hands up through it.

Sniper laughed. “Lost half my teeth and needed a new coat of paint on the whole left of me, and you’re worried about my hair?” he chided.

“It’s just new, thought you hated it getting long,” Scout shrugged.

“Y’know,” his Ma said, sounding all too amused by the proceedings, approaching with Sniper’s glasses and handing them over to him, “you’re lucky you showed me those pictures all those years ago, Jeremy. Otherwise, strange guy shows up at our door askin’ about your work name and all, I would’a started blasting.”

She nodded meaningfully towards the table beside the couch, and Scout saw that indeed she had a gun there, taken from its place where he kept it stashed by the door as a “just in case”.

“Thanks, Ma,” he said, smiling a little.

“No problem, sweetheart,” she said, and patted him on the arm. She glanced between him and Sniper and scooped up the firearm from the table. “I’ll just go put this away,” she said, and left the two of them alone.

“Would’ve been easier to track you down if you’d given me more to go on than ‘southern Boston’,” Sniper said, eyebrows rising. “And if I didn’t need to be so careful about how I asked.”

“Huh?”

Sniper’s expression fell a little, and he raised his hand to fix his hair where Scout had mussed it up. “Look, you know the rules. Employer keeps an eye out for us for years after we leave. That means if I asked through my usual methods of tracking people down, that’d send up flashing red lights somewhere. So I… needed to take extra precautions.”

“Miss P told me they took care of the guys that tried to kill you,” Scout said, frowning.

“I went off radar for almost two years without official leave,” Sniper murmured. “And it wasn’t on purpose, but I don’t think they’d believe that. They might try and kill me if they find out I’m still alive. I’m a loose end.”

Scout’s heart dropped.

“Only cut it close once,” Sniper said, gaze falling. “But that was enough for Miss Pauling to get in contact with me, to try to talk to me. I… I told her I’m done, I’m out of mercenary work, and… just as a precaution I have to do a few things now. Check in on the regular. I wear this,” he said, pushing his sleeve up to show off a bulky device on his wrist, bigger than a watch. “It’s tracker. Makes sure I’m only in the places I say I’m going. Had to get a visa by myself, get transportation by myself, and it cut my protection time in half so now I’ve had to hire on someone to guard my parents and keep them safe, but now she’ll keep it secret that I’m alive. They’ll stop looking for me in two years, and if by then I’m still playing by the rules, I’m free. Back to normal life.”

“She said it was okay that you be here?” Scout asked. “In the same city as me? She wasn’t worried about that?”

“Told her why I was coming here,” Sniper shrugged.

“And what’d you tell her?” Scout asked softly.

They looked at each other.

“I… didn’t want to assume,” Sniper said quietly, carefully, looking over his face. “That you’d… I, I understand if you’ve moved on. Seven years, declared dead—“

“I didn’t,” Scout said just as quietly.

Sniper gave a breathless little laugh, cupping his face. “Bilby, I _told_ you to,” he tried.

“Well, so-_rry_,” Scout said next, throat a little tight, hands on his hips, “Mister—Mister Legally Dead. Sorry I didn’t jump into speed dating the second I got the news. What, you—you wanted me to have kids by now?”

“Wouldn’t blame you,” Sniper shrugged, and kissed him, and pulled back away. “But… I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Well I’m glad you’re glad,” Scout mumbled, and kissed him, and pulled back away. “So…?”

Sniper was smiling, wide and unashamed. “So one day at a time,” he said quietly. “We can talk about it more in a bit. First, mind if I use your phone?”

“Why?”

“Meant to call in to check with Pauling in—“ He glanced around to find the clock in the room. “—three minutes or so. And… I ought to tell her I’ve made progress. And… that we’re sorting out details. Might call you over to talk to her too.”

“Yeah, go ahead. Hallway by the kitchen,” Scout directed, and kissed him again, and again, and again, until Sniper urged him down and off before he was late calling in.

He found himself in the kitchen, looking out the window. Ma was unloading the dishwasher and humming. In the hallway, the sound of talking, long pauses, more talking.

“He seems nice,” Ma said quietly, and shot Scout a smile, and Scout smiled too.

“He was—_is_,” he corrected quickly, flinching a little bit.

“How you feelin’?” Ma asked.

Scout looked down, crossed his arms over himself. “Y’know how in movies there’s that bit people do, all “feels too good to be true” or whatever?”

“Uh huh.”

“Kinda the opposite. It feels… like him being gone wasn’t real. And now stuff is real again.”

“Like you woke up?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, exactly,” Scout confirmed.

“I could tell,” Ma admitted, and stretched to reach the cabinet to put things away once they were good and dry. “Been a zombie since you got back, seems like maybe you’ve been a zombie for a while.”

Scout moved over to help, taking the dishes that belonged in the higher shelves and starting to put those away. “Sheesh, was I seriously that obvious?”

“It was pretty bad.”

“…Is that, like… normal? Or… healthy?” Scout asked carefully.

Ma laughed. “Sweetheart, how should I know?”

“But you know, like, everything.”

Ma pinched him on the cheek at the compliment and he squawked a complaint, and she laughed.

“I don’t know if it’s healthy,” she finally replied. “And… maybe it’s not about whether it’s healthy. Maybe… it’s just one step. And, hey, it worked out, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and smiled. “Yeah, it did.”

“Bilby,” Sniper called, leaning in to look through the door to the kitchen, phone cord visibly all stretched out. “Wants to talk to you.”

Miss Pauling ran through a brief check to make sure he was indeed Scout, then asked a series of questions. Whether he felt safe with being around Sniper on the regular. Whether Sniper would be staying with him on the regular, and the fact that instead of extending security to cover him, she’d need to just go more lax on Scout’s security to make sure Sniper wasn’t found out.

He was fine with that. All of that.

After the phone call, after a few more questions, he dragged Sniper upstairs and flung open the door to his closet, digging through the dusty old boxes with purpose. Then he was pulling out an item and shoving it directly into Sniper’s chest.

Sniper put his hat back on, and Scout couldn’t help but yank him down into another kiss at the wave of nostalgia and familiarity as Sniper nudged his glasses up and looked at him and asked if it was on crooked, the same way he’d said a hundred times before, a hundred years ago.

And, hopefully, he’d say it a billion more times, for a billion more years. Scout would make sure of it.


	53. Demo/Sniper/Scout, Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Hi! Love ur work! Scout is scared n feel overwhelmed of his feelings for both Demo and Snipes. Scout likes to talk about himself, sure, but not about his feelings, he doesn't know how to, he thinks that if he tried to show or express his feelings he'd be a mess at explaining it and hed be made fun of. And he knew no one would put up with his shit, right? No one liked him, the team didn't like him, Demo and Sniper didn't like him..., *right*? But, what if scout couldn't hold it in no more? -🐑"
> 
> tentative name for this ship since i haven’t been able to find one anywhere–either Caffeine Shot or Caffeinated Cocktail  
(warnings for mention of alcohol and brief mention of homophobia)]]

Okay, so—okay. So it wasn’t exactly one of those problems that he could call home about where he could be like “hey Ma, how did you always get the grass stains out of my baseball pants?” and she would go “cold water regular wash then rubbing alcohol and a rinse or just wash and bleach if it’s white, dummy” and that would be that. And it wasn’t exactly one of those problems that he could call home about where he could go “hey Ma, I’m kinda worried about life stuff and kinda wanna talk it out but it’s embarrassing so I wanted to talk to you specifically” then followed by like an hour long conversation laden with both of them rambling and getting sidetracked.

And it wasn’t exactly one of those problems where he would go to Medic like “hey Doc how come since I started working here I feel jumpy and exhausted all the time” and Medic would prescribe better diet and exercise and an actual sleep routine alongside having more prep time before and after battle to warm up into it and back down afterwards. And it wasn’t exactly one of those problems where he’d be playing poker with the guys and go “hey so I tried to go on a date again and it went bad again because she got annoyed with me and left after like half an hour” and they’d give him wildly different advice and play out wildly ridiculous scenarios just riffing off of each other and joking around and he didn’t really know what to do any differently but at least he felt better.

He was actually pretty sure he couldn’t talk to _anyone_ about this, and he was actually pretty sure that he was going to drop dead as a result.

Because yeah, there was the spare guy from math class in high school or upperclassman on the track team who Scout would look up and down and kind of a little bit sort of wanna make out with, but that was like, one guy, and only for maybe an hour at a time, and he didn’t have to talk to them if he didn’t want. So he could go ahead and take that secret little tickle at the inside of his ribcage and shove it deep deep down and desperately try not to think about it or talk about it to literally anyone.

And it worked great! It was a great system! Because he didn’t _not_ like girls, girls were great, he’d totally go out with girls and be more than satisfied, so nobody needed to know that somewhere in the very back of his mind, guys were also kind of a little bit on the table. Like, when in the movie where the guy spins the bottle and it lands on another guy and they both flinch and spit in disgust, Scout would always go “I mean, I would do it” in his head. Like, he would say yes if someone asked and he knew they could keep it quiet. Like, he was always a little bit jealous of the people back home who were out and proud and could kick around the South End holding hands with dudes and seeming not particularly scared about it.

But this wasn’t some guy in math class or on his track team. This was a crush on someone he shared a base and fought a war with. Worse, _two_ someones. Worse, two _hot_ someones.

Worse, his best friends.

That was the part he felt the worst about, when it came to his crush on Demo and Sniper. He felt so guilty, all the time. Out getting drinks on the weekend and trying not to stare too hard when they laughed at his jokes, so different and so distinct and so _nice_. Trying not to blush when they assured him that they didn’t think he was annoying when apparently everyone else on the planet who he’d ever tried to date had disagreed. Curling his hands into fists instead of reaching over to lace his fingers together with one of them. Both of them. Biting and chewing his lip to absolute goddamn shreds like he used to do in middle school to keep from saying anything embarrassing and getting caught. They trusted him on some level, and there he was, glancing at them and looking at them and feeling like his heart was going to swell up and spill out of his mouth any second and they had no idea.

It would help if he knew how to talk about any of this. He didn’t know how to have tact, or how to talk about things like an adult. He generally did one night stands at most, partially because most people couldn’t stand him for much longer than that. He was frustrating to be around, contrary, always mouthing off, loved to argue too much, liked playing dumb games. And he tried to be up front about that with people, but either they’d check out of that conversation around then and leave him be, or they wouldn’t believe him and they’d ditch him somewhere down the line.

He wasn’t in a lot of relationships.

Maybe that was part of the problem, is he didn’t ever wanna dive too deep with people, was always just joking around or making light of stuff and not taking it seriously because he had to expect whoever he tried to date to leave him in the dust the second he got to be too much. So that meant he never really… learned how. How to talk about things seriously, how to have those conversations. Even his usual pick-up line, the walking right up to someone and asking if they wanted to have sex with him, that felt so non-serious, so much like a joke, even if it was a really great way of establishing “hey I’m not necessarily looking for a long-term relationship right now with you but this is what I want and I’m gonna be entirely up front and you can shoot me down right here right now and you won’t look crazy or weird at all”.

After however long of being friends with all the guys, but in particular Demo and Sniper, it felt almost disrespectful to reduce things to a joke. But he didn’t know if he had it in him to set up what he wanted to say and be super honest with them and get all vulnerable, not when he was so sure that he would probably be shot down.

Like, just because they hung out with Scout voluntarily from time to time, that didn’t mean they would want to _date_ him. Who knew if they even liked guys? Probably not. Who knew if they even actually liked _him_, personally? Also doubtful, as far as Scout was concerned. That would make them two of very, very few people who would even just put up with him when they weren’t required to.

It was… frustrating.

He just… he knew that if he told either of them, they would be understanding, probably. Sniper didn’t have it in him to be outright rude to anyone he considered his friend, and Demo always seemed to know what Scout meant when he rambled about anything. They wouldn’t be mad.

Still, his brain continued to hit him with useless “what if”s on what all could go wrong for him, and they held him back from doing or saying anything at all.

Months of that. Entire months. And ultimately, he was too much of a coward to crack open that particular can of worms. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

It was a work night, so Sniper insisted they don’t get _properly_ blasted when they went out drinking, but they did have a nice solid buzz and a nice healthy appetite, so they’d dragged their asses to a truck stop diner (the nearest place open so late that wouldn’t give them weird looks), and they’d squeezed into a booth a little away from the bulk of things to keep from having to watch their words in case the topics switched over to talking about work.

And it was like it always was—easygoing, friendly. Steady rhythm, steady laughter. Scout got teased on the regular for his face going red whenever he slipped up or forgot a word when speaking and Sniper had to fill in the blanks, and Demo got flicked with the fry bits left on Scout’s plate whenever he had a particularly good zinger, and Sniper got put on blast for his unique vocabulary that he claimed just “wasn’t an American thing”.

And Scout sat there, across the booth from the two of them, pulse quickening, hands kind of sweaty, wishing he wasn’t such a coward.

“Know what’s got me thinking?” Demo asked, nicking some food from Sniper’s plate and ignoring his grumble of protest.

“What?” Scout prompted.

“How _you_,” he said, pointing at Scout with a fry for emphasis, “haven’t gone on a date in ages. Used to be that you couldn’t hardly do diner runs because you had a date to catch, these days you’re the one suggesting them.”

“Yeah, well…” Scout shrugged, trailed, the cogs in his heads throwing up smoke as he desperately tried to think of an excuse.

“Bloody got his heart taken, doesn’t he?” Sniper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah, nah, he’s given up on Pauling,” Demo corrected before Scout could pick that idea up and run with it. “Told us months ago.”

Sniper turned that raised eyebrow to Scout, who shriveled a little bit. “Well. Didn’t know about that. But that’s not exactly who I was talking about.”

His heart dropped to his toes. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Well, there was that month or so after you started slobbering over Pauling where you were like this, and weren’t dating, and were acting like a right mess,” Sniper shrugged, and god damn it, why did he have to be so observant. “And then there was a gap of time, and now you’re back at it, but apparently not for her.”

Demo was also looking at Scout, and he sunk in his chair, face on fire. “Well. Not like it’s a total mystery,” he admitted. “Been a bit obvious about it.”

“You figured it out too?” Sniper asked, blinking, as Scout tried to figure out whether he could make a break for it. “Thought you didn’t know.”

“How could I not know?” Demo scoffed. “Blushing like a damn schoolgirl, laughing at every joke—“

“Forgetting words, making excuses to go drinking—“ Sniper agreed.

“Getting flustered over compliments—“

“Paying for meals—“

“I, okay,” Scout scoffed, maybe the worst bluff of his life. “Who exactly do you two dummies think I’ve got a crush on, then?”

“Him,” they both said, jerking a thumb towards each other, then they were both blinking, heads spinning around.

“Why would he have a crush on _me?”_ Sniper asked.

“What makes you say _that?”_ Demo asked at the same time.

Scout was barely visibly over the edge of the table, hiding his face in his hands.

“You’re the one he’s always running a mile out from base for to knock your damn door down to get you to go to breakfast,” Demo pointed out.

“You’re the one he’s always pestering with the scheme of the week and bugging to set off some fireworks with after hours,” Sniper pointed out.

“Yeah,” Scout agreed, voice a squeak, knowing he was caught.

“Well, which one of us _is_ it, lad?” Demo prompted.

“Yeah,” Scout agreed, mortified.

Silence, for almost twenty seconds. “Oh,” Sniper finally said quietly.

“You’ve… got a thing for _both_ of us?” Demo asked hesitantly.

Scout nodded.

Another silence. When Scout briefly peeked through his fingers, Demo and Sniper seemed to be having a non-verbal discussion that appeared to morph into an argument of some kind, both gesturing and mouthing words at each other in turn, occasionally jerking their heads towards Scout meaningfully.

“I’m sorry,” Scout mumbled.

“Don’t be, lad, nothing wrong with that!” Demo was quick to assure, and reached over across the table. Scout met him halfway, and Demo squeezed his hand tightly. “Look, we—we can figure something out! Right, Mund?”

“Right,” Sniper was quick to agree, also reaching across the table, following Demo’s lead. “It’s—it’s bloody 1971, mate, right? Modern era and all, we—we’ll figure it out.”

“What, like… like, all three of us?” Scout asked, blinking.

“Sure! Why not?” Demo shrugged, and he had a great point. Why not?

Scout was quiet for a few seconds, processing. “…Feel like we’re skipping over the part where—you’re—you guys _like_ me?” he asked, surprised.

“Bloody showing up to a diner at two in the buggering morning just to spend time with you, aren’t we?” Sniper pointed out, grinning a little.

“…Shit, you totally are.”

“So? That sound alright with you?” Demo asked, raising his eyebrow.

“…Yeah. Yeah, it does. Fuck yeah! Yeah,” Scout agreed quickly, waiting for the catch. The addendum.

Apparently the addendum was that then when they went back to base they hung out in Demo’s room and made out a little bit, and y’know what? Pretty good addendum.


	54. Engineer/Spy, Domesticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: I love your writing so much! Can you do more engiespy?"
> 
> welcome to sweet domestic dad hour featuring these sweet domestic dads  
(warnings for offhanded mention of mercenary work but no actual violence)]]

Spy was being far too sweet, which was his first hint that something was wrong.

Coaxed always from work to get something to eat, his choice made a bit easier by the fact that Spy had gone to the liberty of making dinner for the two of them. Not anything as fancy and involved as he probably would’ve liked, there on a bench together in his workshop with fluorescent lights and not candles, but delicious and pleasantnonetheless.

Spy had finished eating first, and taken to being all kinds of distracting, one hand wandering over his back and the other on the table in front of him tapping a slow, pleasant rhythm as he talked about some of the details he could disclose from his most recent mission. Once that conversation came to a close, Spy instead took to being even more outright distracting, kissing at the Engineer’s jaw and along his face in a way that would probably make most people absolutely melt.

But he was a little more used to such displays, behind closed doors and in the security that privacy provided, so he merely smiled and leaned into it, appreciating the affection without trying too hard to push for more. Spy was like a cat, in some ways—he would dispense his attention and loving gestures whenever he saw fit, but might flee at a moment’s notice if he felt trapped at all in it.

It was just that all of this was a good bit more effort than Spy generally went to—already an unusually high amount—and in a different way that usual, not to mention entirely unprompted. So the Engineer was a little bit worried.

He didn’t push it until he was done eating, and cleared their plates away, and told Spy that he had a bit more work to do but it could wait a little while. And he returned to being fawned over for a short time before tucking a hand under Spy’s chin to tug him into a long, slow kiss, and when he pulled back, then and only then did he say anything.

“You feelin’ alright?” he asked gently, quietly, and Spy’s eyebrows rose.

“Do I not seem to be?” he asked, light and teasing.

“You seem a little too alright,” Engie shrugged, and kissed him again for a lengthy moment before he pulled back and continued. “And it’s nice and all, but I worry, you know.”

Spy hummed, looked over his face. Pulled him into a series of short, almost playful kisses before he pulled back a bit further to reply. “Well. I suppose I just have some things on my mind,” he said simply. “Not necessarily unpleasant things, merely large ones.”

“Penny for your thoughts?” the Engineer asked.

“They’re worth much more than that, _mon cher_,” Spy joked, and his expression fell back to a neutral sort of contentment a moment later. “I suppose it isn’t so much… _regrets_. Just what might have been, would things have been a little different.”

“More “would if”s, not “what if I hadn’t”, then?” he asked.

“A little of both,” Spy admitted. He considered his words for another few moments, and the Engineer did him the favor of relinquishing eye contact to instead return Spy’s earlier affections, kissing beneath his jaw and ear and ignoring, as he always did, how odd the fabric of a mask felt. “I was simply thinking about how, had I met you twenty years ago rather than five, I might have killed you rather than fallen in love with you,” he finally admitted, and the Engineer stopped.

“…Uh huh?” he asked, pulling back to look at him.

Spy nodded. “I just suppose it’s… interesting to think about.” A small smile. “I was a different man back then. Much more cocky, much less scarring.”

“Wonder whether those might be connected somehow,” he joked.

His smiled widened just a touch. “I wonder.” Spy then leaned in to kiss at him some more.

“Think we’d have ended up like this if we met now, not five years ago?” Engie asked, tilting his head obligingly to give Spy access to the space below his jaw. “If we hadn’t been hired on together until now?”

“Assuming I was still alive,” Spy demurred against his pulse point, “and still willing to be hired here, and still fit for mercenary work, then… I don’t see why not.”

“Another five years from now?” he asked next.

“Again, assuming I would still be alive,” Spy hummed.

“You don’t think you would be?”

“I’m almost certain I wouldn’t,” Spy snorted, pulling back to look at him. “Already it was a combination of exceptional skill and astronomical luck that I made it far enough to be hired here, _mon cher_. I should not like to push that further.”

“And you think if we’d met earlier, you’d’ve killed me?” he asked next.

“That was my primary reason for meeting interesting new people, yes, was that I was hired to kill them,” Spy agreed, laughing a little. He leaned in for another kiss, this one brief. “Or perhaps, upon being hired to kill you, I would have instead fallen for your sweet Southern charms and given up a life of espionage altogether, _mon beau_, who knows?”

“Think I could’ve made a farmhand outta you?” he laughed, disbelieving but not upset. “Gotten you to settle down and go domestic, while I kept at work on my machines?”

“Well,” Spy hesitated, eyes flickering away for a moment, posture shifting. “It would not be out of the question, I’m sure.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It is not out of the question now, either, which surely means something,” Spy said, a touch fast, a touch clipped, not quite entirely looking at him.

Silence, for the several seconds it took for the weight of that to sink in, then he kissed Spy again for a long moment to buy the time to think of a response for that. When he pulled back, Spy looked a little tense. “Think you’d be happy like that?” he asked quietly.

“I’m… not sure,” he admitted. “Perhaps… I would still enjoy traveling, and… I do enjoy keeping up with world politics. But I’ll admit that I’m getting a little tired of fighting and murder. It’s lost the thrill, somewhere along the line. And when this job is over, I’m not sure I could commit to it for much longer, and… already, in most ways, you’re…”

He waited for Spy to sort his words out, clearly having a difficult time with them, unable to look him in the eyes.

“Already in some ways you fill that sort of role. A… place to return to. An anchor, almost.”

“Lighthouse?” he suggested lightly.

“Lighthouse, tether, safe haven, there are plenty of words I could use, _mon chou_. But… by this point in my life, the idea of somewhere and someone to return to after traveling is extremely appealing.” Spy smiled a little. “I suppose I may be getting old.”

“Well, apparently much younger and you’d be stabbing me in the back,” the Engineer joked, and Spy’s shoulders shook lightly with a silent laugh. He paused. “I guess we’ll wait and see. I don’t think I’ll ever stop working for Mann Co. in any official capacity, legacy Engineer and all, but… my father and grandfather both got to settle down at about this age, don’t see why I wouldn’t be allowed to.”

Spy nodded at that, paused for a long moment. When he spoke, his tone was much more lighthearted. “I intended for this conversation to be much more romantic. And with slightly more fanfare than a Tuesday night with work in the morning,” he admitted, just a little bit self-deprecating.

“You made me dinner,” he pointed out.

“…I did,” Spy agreed.

“Might have a candle or two around here somewhere,” he joked.

Spy raised his eyebrows. “Why do I get the distinct impression that you are making fun of me, _mon cher?”_ he asked.

“Now where would you’ve gotten an idea like that?” he chuckled, and planted a kiss on Spy’s cheek.

A little hum. “Well. We can talk about it more later. As it is, I’ve taken up far more of your time than I should—“

“Always welcome in here,” he reminded.

“But not for terribly long when you have work to do,” Spy returned, and moved to stand. “I will be seeing you.”

“Have a good night, Spy,” he said, knowing well what it looked like when Spy was a little uncomfortable with the amount of honesty he’d dispensed and needed time to collect himself.

“You as well, Tinkerer,” Spy said, and disappeared from sight with a wave, and within two minutes the smell of his cologne and cigarette smoke faded from the room, and the Engineer was left entirely alone. And he didn’t particularly worry about it. Spy made it clear that he’d always come back eventually.


	55. Sniper/Scout, Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: scout likes sniper but can't help but blush and go awkward when he sees it"
> 
> me, who saw a very pretty girl with bitchin’ tattoos and temporarily forgot how to speak english for about five minutes today: ha check out this fuckin loser having’ crushes and stuff….. ha what a fuckin goobus  
(no warnings)]]

He really did legitimately hate the fact that he always made such an idiot out of himself in front of people he liked.

Like, he had _literally_ no problem just hooking up with people. Absolutely no shame. See someone good-looking, walk up, ask them if they wanna bang, either get slapped or get in a car. He didn’t feel even a little bit bad about it, he was just being really honest about exactly what it was he wanted. And plenty of people respected that he wasn’t one to play stupid games.

The issue was that as soon as he got like, more than moderately invested before he could cut to the chase, he was absolutely fucked.

Miss Pauling was a great example. The situation surrounding him first meeting her was such a whirlwind and so weird that he didn’t really get a chance to ask her out, and so he’d just sorta been left to _stew_ on it, and then he got _cheesy_. Started thinking about all kinds of romantic shit. And that was a complete fuckin’ mess for like, literally years until he found out she was seeing some girl and promptly stepped off because he was a hopeless romantic, not an animal.

And that had like, sucked, but at least he was functional. He only saw Miss P like, on the monthly maybe, and usually just over the phone or whatever and not in person. At least he could spend the vast majority of his time being exactly as much of a doofus as he usually was and not just a hoppy sappy mess.

But then. Oh, but fucking _then_.

He glanced in his periphery as subtly as he could, popping his gum to try and just for a second act natural, so frustrated with himself over how warm his face had gotten all of a sudden.

It was especially frustrating because like, it had kinda snuck up on him, all the gross heart-fluttery crap that always came along for the ride whenever he got a thing for someone. And he hadn’t really pieced it together for such a long time, but then one thing happened and everything cracked wide open all at once and now he couldn’t even just sit through the team meeting without—

Sniper moved to tug on his own hat idly, nudging his shades up his nose the millimeter or two they’d slid down since he last adjusted them maybe a minute and a half previously, and Scout had to force himself to stop looking at the guy for like ten seconds. And ten seconds was exactly how long he lasted before he was looking over again.

It _sucked_. Like, he’d gone years and years just kinda letting Sniper do his thing—the guy clearly just wanted to be left alone, didn’t want to be bothered with their shenanigans, so he really didn’t ever see Sniper around much. Barely knew the guy beyond like, some very basic stuff. And he kinda got the impression at first that Sniper was actually just way too cool for him to talk to, a hired assassin from fuckin’ _Australia_ of all places, beyond skilled and into intimidating in his particular practice, maybe a little scary in the few interactions Scout caught him in during battle.

And he was like, more an idea of a person than an actual person, for those reasons. Scout didn’t really think much about what he had to actually be like.

Then one night Scout woke up around 3 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep and he decided to just go grab a snack from the kitchen to try and maybe squeeze a nap in before he was meant to be awake at 6:30, and he’d walked in and seen Sniper standing there.

Sniper was pretty professional in all interactions Scout ever had with him. Only ever showed up in the base proper in full uniform, and while he wasn’t like, Medic or Spy levels of crisp clean-cut, he still always at least looked put-together. But now Scout was confronted with the concept of what Sniper wore for pajamas, something he’d only ever thought about once or twice before, and was now suddenly witnessing.

Sweatpants, apparently, and a sweater. Green and grey, knitted. Socks. No hat or sunglasses, which was weird enough that it actually kind of took Scout a second to understand who he was looking at.

Sniper looked up at him when he walked in, and Scout knew he probably looked like hell, but Sniper didn’t look all that much better. He seemed pretty tired, and Scout watched as he visibly tried to sort himself out, standing up straight and squaring his shoulders a little, leaning less heavily on the counter.

“Uh, sup,” Scout said, and walked over to the fridge, deciding to just kinda play it cool and like he was totally anticipating that someone might be in the kitchen at 3 AM, and also that it wasn’t weird that he was in the kitchen at 3 AM.

“…‘llo,” Sniper mumbled, and glanced back down at what he’d been doing before Scout showed up.

Eating cereal, apparently, the bland wheat garbage that about half the team usually put up with, he and Pyro being the ones who tended to go for the more sugary brands. Scout occupied himself with trying to sift through the over-stuffed fridge for something he could feasibly eat, deciding not to stare.

But the silence was pretty painful. He didn’t like silence, it always felt almost _itchy_ to stand there and not say anything when there was someone like five feet away, so he broke it after a few seconds. “Doesn’t it get hot in that?” he asked, not looking over at Sniper.

A pause long enough that Scout was half convinced Sniper was just going to ignore him, but he did end up speaking. “Gets cold at night. ‘Specially out there, it’s… warmer in the base,” Sniper murmured. “Used to it being warm, besides.”

“Fair,” Scout shrugged, pulled out a container, glanced at it, put it back. “Probably hotter in—“

“Australia, yeah,” Sniper agreed, in a tone that implied he’d heard that a hundred times before.

“It’s summer there right now, right?” Scout asked, pulling out a different container and scowling when he saw Engie’s name on it, begrudgingly putting it back.

“…Yeah.”

Scout finally found a leftover Chinese takeout box that he was at least reasonably sure was his own, and moved over to the microwave, dropping the leftovers on a plate and putting in some random amount of time, aware he’d just be stopping the microwave when noises started happening anyways. He glanced back over at Sniper. Sniper wasn’t looking at him. “That’s a cool sweater, though,” Scout finally said.

“Thanks,” Sniper said into his bowl. “It’s, er…”

There was a very long silence as Scout waited for Sniper to finish his sentence and he didn’t. He popped the microwave open to check on his leftovers. Not warm enough. He closed it again, turned back around. Kept waiting.

Apparently Sniper did decide to finish his sentence eventually. “It’s wool. From… back home,” he said, voice still quiet.

“Huh?” Scout asked, a little confused.

Sniper finished his bowl, put it on the counter next to him. Scratched at the back of his neck. Without the hat it was much more obvious how Sniper’s hair just kinda flipped up in the back, and how unruly the rest of his hair was as well, even deliberately brushed back out of the way. “Family’s sheep farmers,” he finally said.

Scout’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”

Sniper nodded. “We don’t… spin the wool, some other bloke does that, but we get to sell the yarn at least. Usually m’parents keep at least a little bit. Mum knits. Gives… gloves and the like to any kids in town.”

“She made that too?” Scout asked, glancing the sweater up and down again. “Jesus, how long did that take?”

Sniper shrugged. “Week, maybe two.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Scout scratched at his arm as a memory occurred to him. “Only sweaters I ever had were hand-me-downs from my brothers, itchy as all fuck. They never wanted to pass down the softer ones.”

Sniper nodded at that. “Makes sense.”

There was a long silence then, in which Scout finally noticed his food was starting to make popping noises and he pulled it out. Mostly hot, some cold bits in the middle, but he grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the drawer of assorted utensils and stirred it around so it was more even. It was just noodles, so it didn’t matter much.

“Late dinner,” Sniper said, almost managing to make it sound like a joke.

“Early breakfast,” Scout shot back, nodding at the cereal bowl and stirring his food around a bit more.

Sniper tilted his head in a vague sort of agreement, going quiet again. Scout started eating, and winced a little at how some noodles were weirdly dry and others were goopy, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Silence again, but at least Scout could keep himself occupied with eating instead of thinking about it.

“You know how to use chopsticks?” Sniper finally asked, surprising Scout a little bit. He glanced up.

“Yeah, duh, who doesn’t?” Scout scoffed.

Silence for a second. “I don’t,” Sniper said.

Scout looked up again, befuddled. “Man, are you serious? I learned that when I was like, five,” he prodded.

Sniper shrugged, looking away again. “Just never learnt. Never really had to, didn’t come up.”

“Fuckin’, learn how to use chopsticks, man. What’re you waiting for, a written invitation?” Scout joked.

“Eh. I’ll get to it,” Sniper shrugged again, and rubbed at his eye, and suddenly it hit Scout how much of a human being Sniper was. Standing there in a sweater his mom knit for him, eating cereal at three in the morning, admitting that he just never learned how to use chopsticks.

What the fuck, Sniper was just a regular dude who happened to be in their line of work.

What the fuck.

(He did look pretty good out of uniform, huh—?)

And that was it for him, a series of back-to-back realizations compounding until he realized how good-looking Sniper was, even rumbled at three in the morning under the shitty fluorescents of the kitchen—_especially_ like that. And he felt his face go burning hot, and he dug into his noodles to try and cover it, and he almost choked on his food.

Absolute fucking mess.

And like—now Scout was noticing all kinds of tiny little things. Sniper always crossed his legs at the ankle, left-over right, and his arms right-over-left. He had a bruise on his thumb from jamming it on his rifle, and his shades were crooked a little tiny bit to the left, and his hair was all flippy-uppy in the back but there was this one lock of hair that was _especially_ flippy-uppy. He didn’t put anything in his coffee like an absolute monster but did put just a little bit of sugar on his cereal, apparently. He kept nodding off during meetings but nobody else seemed to notice since he had the shades on and you had to be looking pretty closely and from roughly Scout’s angle at the table to see his eyes were closed, and he didn’t have any other tells besides his jaw being a little tight.

Twice so far he’d been asked by Medic if he had a fever, he was blushing so hard. At once point Demo had dunked on him a little bit about “zoning out” and “thinkin’ about someone special, probably”, and he’d only barely escaped by rolling his eyes and rolling with the joke instead of getting defensive. He’d gotten mysteriously more clumsy in front of the team at large, fumbling and tripping over his words and even _stammering_ sometimes. He was such a goddamn sappy mess.

God. He was so fucked.


	56. Sniper&Family, Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: Maybe weird request?- What would happen if one of the tf2 crew were around other people/their families and did something out of habit or react to something in a way that might be normal at work but definitely not normal and Very Concerning for everyone else? I love your writing alot and hope you have a good day!"
> 
> went with sniper just because i been itchin to write some sweet old people  
(no warnings)]]

Dolores Mundy wasn’t one to ask too many questions about things, especially things that she didn’t strictly need to know about. It wasn’t polite.

That was a favor that largely hadn’t been returned to her over the course of her life. For the majority of her marriage she’d gotten plenty of questions from people about when exactly her and her husband were planning on having a kid, and why not, and all sorts of invasive questions on why she wasn’t able to. Then when she _did_ end up with a kid—albeit in a way that wasn’t strictly entirely as legal as one might hope, a lot of “how”s she couldn’t entirely answer—questions on where exactly he came from then if she couldn’t have a baby. Questions about her son as he grew up, why was he so scrawny, why was he so cowardly, why couldn’t he just man up and fight the other kids if they were picking on him so much—

Her husband Richard said some of the same things, and she could never really convince him to stop.

She understood, in a way, when her son ended up a little bit… different. She didn’t know how a baby boy could fall out of the clear blue sky in a rocket ship and end up a normal, regular kid, and she could only be confused for so long when he wasn’t.

Richard always mumbled under his breath that maybe little Mickey hit his head when the rocket crashed, before being elbowed into silence. She always said he wasn’t stupid, wasn’t cowardly, wasn’t _wrong_, he was just bright in a different way than the other kids. He could defend himself much more easily from up in a tree, throwing rocks down at anyone who tried to climb up after him. It was clever, albiet a good bit more clever than anyone expected from him at that age, and albeit with nobody knowing where on earth he must’ve gotten the idea from.

He was just such a _quiet_ boy, growing up. At first because that was just the way he was, then because he was a bit shy and liked books or taking care of the sheep much more than he liked being shoved around by the other kids. Then, she started to suspect, because he had something the other women in town would refer to as “an old soul”. Really, she was starting to figure out that the phrase just meant he was…

He was a bit sad all the time. A bit lonely. Like a bruise that wouldn’t heal, right on his heart. And she knew all the world had worked together to put it there.

So she wasn’t entirely surprised when he started skivving off of classes, started coming home smelling like tobacco. Wasn’t entirely surprised when one day he packed up his bag and the half-busted little car he’d scraped together enough money for and drove out over the horizon line.

Richard was furious. In a way she thought maybe he didn’t deserve to be—he was half responsible for driving the boy away in the first place. Not that she was happy with it either, she just knew better than to try and do anything about it.

He would go on to be increasingly angry when they finally heard from him again, a few years later, an unprompted phone call (courteously in the middle of the day). He was doing well. He’d gotten a job. He was traveling a lot. No, not dating yet, he hadn’t left over some girl. No, he wasn’t a salesman, different job. Yes, he was getting enough to eat, he was fine, he was healthy and all, just went to see a doctor the other day and he was alright, no it wasn’t an emergency that got him to the doctor—

It was Richard who interrogated it out of him, when she passed him the line. He’d gotten a job as a hunter—he’d always been good with a gun, needed to be to keep any predators away from the flock. He did tracking mostly, out in some other faraway part of the bush. He was good at it. It didn’t involve many other people. He’d upgraded from the terrible little car to a campervan, and things were actually going rather good—

Once Richard’s shouting had died down, she’d gotten the phone back. She asked him if he really was doing okay. He’d been quiet for a while, tried to sidestep the question, and finally admitted that things were a little tight, but he felt better about it than being at home. He was enjoying being left alone for a little while, at least.

She told him she was glad, and that if he needed anything—anything at all—she’d find some way to mail it out to him, address or no. He’d laughed, but it hadn’t sounded entirely right.

Over the course of the next few years, he tried to call regularly, but he missed it some weeks. Once, after being gone for a total of five years, he tried to stop by for the holidays, and had listened to Richard yell for about half an hour before he’d turned and gotten right back in the car again. He’d looked tired. She at least managed to coax him out long enough to hug him before he drove off into god knew where.

Calls were sporadic from then on. Every few months, at least. Tracking was going well. Tracking was going well. Hunting was going well. Hunting was… going. Hunting was fine.

Hunting was—

He was staying in a city for a bit, actually. Someone had work for him. It would pay well. Get him through the leaner months.

He was staying in the city for a while. Good work. If she had any mail to send—

He would be heading out to America in a week. Might end up calling less. Maybe more. He wasn’t sure.

She asked if he was alright. He said he was trying his best. Richard yelled on the phone for a good long while. She didn’t know what Mickey had to say.

Richard had continued to yell when he was no longer on the phone. Shouted up and down the house that their son was a criminal. A killer. Probably heading to America because he had to flee the country. Any day someone would come knocking on their door flashing a badge and asking about him.

They never did.

Eleven years after he first drove off—six years after she’d last seen him, there on the porch wincing under the force of his father’s shouting—he told her he was allowed off of work to come visit for the holidays. And it would only be for a few days and all, but—

She told him he was always welcome at their house. He thanked her. She didn’t ask when exactly he’d gotten into a situation where he had a “work” that he could take a vacation from. She knew he was thanking her for that too, if not out loud.

And she continued to not ask certain questions. She didn’t ask where all those new scars came from. Instead she asked half-jokingly if he was planning on bringing a girl around to meet them at some point. She didn’t ask why he had a large black case that he brought with him upstairs into his own room (left largely untouched, if cleaned up a bit so guests could stay over, if they ever had any). Instead she chided him for being practically skin and bones, clearly not having had enough to eat for a while, wasn’t America meant to be packed full of all kinds of fattening meals—?

She didn’t ask why he never sat with his back to doors or windows if he could help it. She instead asked him if these “coworkers” of his were nice at all, were being kind to him. She didn’t ask why he glanced over his shoulder at every creak of floorboards in their long-since-aging old farmhouse. Instead she asked what on earth he was thinking, letting that old vest of his get so full of holes, didn’t he remember how to sew, just pass it over and she’d have it fixed in a moment—

Sitting and re-reading a book in her armchair with her back to the kitchen, she heard Mickey there at the stove, cooking himself something for lunch. And she heard a loud pop from the stove—must’ve put the kettle on with the bottom wet—and she heard Mickey shout and a crash.

And she was on her feet and in the kitchen in an instant, maternal instinct taking over, thinking he must’ve gotten splashed and burned and knocked the entire pot over. But instead she saw Mickey reeled back against the kitchen table, a chair knocked over next to him, shaking like he’d just seen the devil, wide-eyed and frantic.

It was a different sort of wide-eyed and frantic as what she’d seen before, some twenty years previously, her little boy dashing in the door with scraped knees and elbows and a blackening cheek, the other boys from school laughing at him for having to hide behind his mum like a little kid. And every single time she’d swear up and down at them hard enough that she’d get phone calls from their parents in the coming hours where she’d swear just as hard a second time, having washed off the scrapes and tutted over the bruises and having been chided for babying their boy any further. That was a wide-eyed and frantic that spoke of him being worried, being scared he was going to get in trouble.

This was a wide-eyed and frantic she’d only ever seen late at night, Mickey peering down the hall from his room as Richard stomped his way into his boots and pulled the gun off the wall by the fireplace to chase off whatever predator had the dogs howling up a storm outside. No, this one might be even worse than that, actually. And he looked up at her, and for a moment it seemed like he didn’t even remember her, and that broke her heart.

And she took a second to remember herself regardless, and she didn’t ask what the hell her son had gotten into to make him flinch like that at a sudden loud noise. She didn’t ask why he was still in whatever it was, why he didn’t just come home, surely his father’s nagging wasn’t worse than whatever was making him practically hide under the table. She didn’t ask why he was doing this to his parents, making them so worried, so scared for him all the time.

“Burn yourself, dear?” she asked instead, the kind of fretting he was well used to and could always anticipate.

“Nah,” he managed, voice tight for a second. “Nah,” he said again, level once more. “Near thing, though.”

“Need help in here?” she asked, and maybe that wasn’t really what she was asking. Maybe instead she was asking if he wanted someone in the kitchen with him so he wouldn’t need to look over his shoulder so much.

“Should be awright,” he mumbled, but he righted the chair and left it facing out from the table, and she sat in it, realizing before she could duck back to her armchair that she’d forgotten to even put her book down.

Things were quiet in the kitchen—Richard was out checking on the dogs, it was a hot one and he knew the shade was slim during most of the day. And she and Mickey just occupied the same space for a while, silent.

He spoke first, surprising her. “Same stove as way back. Hardly worked back then, how d’you keep it running now?” he asked, idly.

“Oh, we make do,” she said, the same way she’d said a hundred times before about a hundred different things.

He was quiet again for a long while as the pot of water started coming to a boil. “Ought to replace it,” he murmured. “Get it fixed at least.”

“Well, maybe if we get a less lean year we’ll see,” she replied, the same way she’d said a hundred times before about a hundred different things.

“I could help,” Mickey murmured, even more quietly than before.

She looked up at him, blinked in a sort of surprise. Pushed her glasses up her nose a bit. He wasn’t looking at her. “I could never ask—“ she started.

“Then don’t ask,” he cut in. “Just… just let me help. Just for a little while.”

“Your father would hate it,” she said, almost conspiratorially.

“That’s why I’m not saying this to him,” Mickey mumbled.

She considered that for a long few moments. The pot of water was boiling. “If that’s what you want, dear, then of course,” she finally said, and saw the muscle in his jaw that relaxed.

“Thanks, mum,” he said, and she knew he meant it.

And she hoped he knew that _she_ meant it, not long later when she asked after those “coworkers” again, threatened to come by and give them a stern talking-to by how rude several of them sounded. He’d laughed, at least, which she was just a little bit annoyed about because she was being entirely serious.

And at the very least, she thought it might be a start. At least he was talking to her. At least he was stopping by. And maybe he’d find whatever it was that he was looking for, and then he’d come back. Or maybe, at the very least, she’d be invited to be part of whatever the rest of his life ended up being. That was all she could ask for.


	57. Spy/Ma, Spy&Scout, Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: I love?? Sniper's mom?? Familial stuff just kills me in the best way. Could you do something with Spy and Scout from before Spy had left his family 👉👈 ?"
> 
> im gonna just hope that you’re familiar enough with the Running Blind canon that you have any fuckin idea who the brothers are because they make a pretty steady amount of appearance in this. i call spy by my head canon for his first name (Marcel) since he wouldn’t be called spy until he joined the team, and uhhh one or two other details in this are slightly off-base for the RB canon but like don’t worry about it i don’t think it’ll come up  
(no warnings)]]

“_Ma chou-fleur,_” he greeted, sweeping her in with one arm and planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Marcel!” Ma chided, smacking him on the arm with a dish towel, practically jumping out of her skin. “You scared me! When did you get home?!”

“A few minutes ago,” he replied, smirking, sidestepping to give her access to the dishes she was cleaning off. “I see I missed breakfast.”

“Pot’s on the stove,” she said, ticking her head in the direction of said pot, which at a glance seemed to be full of oatmeal. “Oh, could you—?”

He was already on it, moving to lift the baby from the high chair to carry him against his hip. “_Mon lapin_, look at you, you’re old enough now that you don’t make such a mess,” he joked, picking up a napkin from the table and wiping off the corner of his mouth before moving to set him down by the couch where he had apparently been playing with blocks at some point. He immediately set to trying to climb the couch as best as his little legs could handle.

“Oh, did I tell you?” Ma asked over the sound of running water and an argument happening elsewhere in the apartment. “Jeremy’s walking now!”

“Already?” he asked, looking down at him with surprise. “He was trying last I saw, not making it very far.”

“Tony’s been helping him,” she laughed, washing off and setting aside the last dish and starting to work on the glasses.

“Ma, where’s my backpack?” called Jack, pulling on his jacket by the door and casting around.

“Ask your dad,” she called back, gesturing with her dish towel for emphasis.

“Not my dad,” Jack mumbled, brushing past him to kick around the couch.

“I know,” Marcel said, a little defensive. He glanced around. “Under the table.”

Jack didn’t say thanks, just picking up the backpack and moving out the door.

“Don’t forget your brother!” Ma called before he could shut it.

“Hurry up!” Jack called into the apartment, and Henry darted through the door after him a second later, one shoe only half-on, his hair a mess. Henry hardly had time to call a goodbye to them before the door shut heavily behind them.

Marcel sighed, and Ma gave him a sympathetic glance. The moment was cut short a little bit as another of the boys came into the living room and spotted him.

“Dad, when did you get home—?” Archie started asking, eyes lighting up.

“_Je ne parles pas anglais_,” Marcel said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Archie frowned, thought hard. “Uh. _Quand… es, tu… rentré… à le mansion, papa?_” he asked slowly.

“_La maison,_” he corrected lightly.

“_La maison_,” Archie repeated back.

_“Bien!”_ he praised, smiling wide. “And only a few minutes ago.” He paused. “Are you going to come hug me or not? Make up your mind.”

Archie darted over to hug him tightly around the middle, and he returned it as best he could with the height difference.

“Why _are_ you home early?” Ma asked, towelling off her hands, the last of the dishes rinsed.

“Business went very smoothly, I was able to book a flight for early this morning rather than late tonight,” he replied, and the glance between the two of them was enough to fill in the rest of the blanks. “The boys are all doing good?”

“Twins caught a cold,” Ma replied, wincing a little.

“Oh no!” he exclaimed, expression falling.

“Means I cancelled the babysitter and called for a day off,” she continued.

“Oh no?” he said next, raising an eyebrow at her and smiling a little.

“Don’t be gross,” Archie mumbled from his midsection.

“There is absolutely nothing gross about my being in love with my wife and enjoying spending time with her and my family,” Marcel said lightly, patting him on the head.

Archie grumbled about that, and he laughed. Ma shook her head and the both of them.

“Ah, but I nearly forgot!” Marcel said, and glanced off. “Collin!”

A pause. “What?” Collin called back hesitantly from the boys’ collective room.

“Get out here,” he called next, rolling his eyes a little.

A very considerable pause before Collin peeked out the door and looked at him. “Yeah?” he asked, expression already guilty. Archie pointedly went to go pay attention to the baby, helping him stack some blocks.

“_Mon poulet_, you would not happen to know what happened to my cufflinks, would you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Collin didn’t maintain eye contact. “…No,” he tried.

“Oh. Well, perhaps you can go look for them wherever it was that you happened to “find” them last time they went missing,” he asked even more pointedly. “Maybe they ended up there again somehow.”

Collin nodded and disappeared again quickly.

“You know he keeps taking them because he misses you,” Ma said, voice hushed.

“_Ma petite chou-chou_, he keeps taking the one thing I only have one set of,” he replied. “If he stole ties like you do, it would be less of a problem.”

“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” she said flatly, and that got him to smile at least.

The sound of blocks falling. “Uh,” Archie said. “Oops.”

A pause of a second or two before Jeremy started crying.

Marcel was there in a moment, scooping him up to hold him. “Oh no!” he exclaimed, just as dramatic, tone full of just as much dismay as the crying baby, pressing comforting kisses to the side of his head. “Catastrophe! _Calatime! Mon dieu,_ how could this happen?!”

Jeremy seemed distressed, holding his hand up close to his face protectively. There was a tiny knick where a block had fallen on the back of his tiny hand.

“Crushed by debris, horrible injury,” Marcel tutted, and pressed a few kisses to the injury in question. “_Mon lapin_, we have no choice but to amputate. Hopefully you will do well being left-handed.”

Jeremy seemed to be calming down quickly as he both realized that maybe he was actually okay and also that his dad agreed that the situation seemed kind of scary for a minute.

“Unless it seems alright? Perhaps you were really okay?” he asked pointedly, raising his eyebrows. “Maybe the world is not ending? The arm can be saved?”

Jeremy started to suck on his thumb, reached with his other hand to grab hold of his jacket.

“Ah, you’re just an actor,” Marcel teased, beeped his nose, shook his head when he giggled in response.

“Archie, sweetheart, could you help me out and dry the dishes while I check on your brothers?” Ma asked, two wet towels in hand as she moved towards the boys’ room.

“Okay,” Archie agreed, and Marcel continued to hold the baby for a few seconds before deciding to go say hello to the rest of the boys, putting him back down to play with his blocks.

The baby was not having any of it, making little noises of distress and not letting go of his jacket. “_Mon lapin_, yes, I love you too, but I do not want to take you in to see your brothers and get sick,” he chided. “You should stay out here.”

The baby made further distressed noises.

“How about I bring your brother to see you, he can teach you to walk some more, _oui?_” he tried. “Would you like to play with Tony?”

He seemed to be thinking very hard about that concept, but did not let go of his jacket.

“Okay,” he sighed, straightening up, still holding the baby. “Okay. We can both go. You’ve convinced me.”

“Losing an argument with a baby, I see,” Archie deadpanned from the sink.

“I want you to know that the amount of cheesy and romantic I can be with your mother is a sliding scale that only goes up,” Marcel drawled.

“Nevermind,” Archie said.

“That’s what I thought.”


	58. Sniper/Scout, Crate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["thecatchat asked: Hello! Maybe 73 with sniper scout? Except instead of sniper being the tall one, scout is like standing on a crate or stoll or something so he can be the tall one? Thank you and I love your writing very much!"
> 
> i was gonna find that one meme with the like “he likes to be tall” and like edit scout tf2’s face on it but it’s 1 AM dude i aint got that patience  
(no warnings)]]

“Snipes! Snipes, c’mere!”

Sniper considered his options for a few seconds before putting his coffee down and grabbing his knife. He knew that between rounds, Spychecking was a little superfluous and unnecessary since it was so rare either of the Spies would try and mess with the other team, but he wanted to be cautious.

Then he turned the corner and saw Scout and knew yeah, no, there was no Spy who would stoop to something this ridiculous, even disguised.

“Havin’ a protest?” he asked dryly, looking from the crate—maybe an ammunition box?—to Scout, who was standing on it.

“Nah shuttup let me do my joke, c’mere,” Scout instructed, waving Sniper over.

Sniper sheathed his knife and obliged, walking over, letting Scout pull him in another step or two by the front of his shirt, which he promptly smoothed back out again.

“How’s it feel?” Scout asked smugly, grinning down at him.

It took Sniper a moment to piece together what Scout meant. “…To be the short one?” he finally asked, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

“Yeah,” Scout agreed.

“I’m not _this_ much taller than you, surely,” Sniper huffed, glancing down at the crate.

“This box is like, not even a foot tall. And you’re like half a foot taller than me,” Scout replied.

Sniper blinked at that. “…Oh,” he said, starting to piece together a few things about why Scout probably complained so much at Sniper’s teasing him about being short.

Scout looked him over for another moment or two before reaching to cup Sniper’s chin, tilting his head up. And Sniper then pieced together even more information, this time about why Scout tended to melt when Sniper did that to him, because that did feel rather nice. Scout made a kissy face at him teasingly and Sniper rolled his eyes, flushing.

“Don’t patronize me,” he deadpanned.

Scout made a kissy face at him again.

“I’m not—I’m not getting on my toes to kiss you. This is ridiculous.”

“Snipes I’ve popped up on my toes literally every time I’ve kissed you ever,” Scout said flatly. “C’mon. Just once.”

Sniper sighed and did so, feeling extremely silly even as he hooked arms up over Scout’s shoulders to pull him down. Scout wrapped arms around his middle in return, and Sniper couldn’t deny that it felt kind of nice, actually. A fun new angle to be kissing him at, and a weird sense of comfort, something… it was just nice, he couldn’t explain it. Even if he did still feel a little silly.

When Scout pulled back from the kiss, he was smiling. “I’m gonna buy a pair of heels,” he said decisively.

“You’re gonna buy—“ Sniper glanced down at the crate. “—Ten inch heels? You’ll break your ankles. And the blokes will _absolutely_ be making fun of you.”

“I won’t be able to hear ‘em from way up here,” Scout joked, messing with Sniper’s hat a little bit then dipping back down to kiss him a few more times, little pecks. Then his grin dimmed. “Shit, this is killer on your back though, huh?”

“So’s everything else,” Sniper shrugged, and Scout moved to squeeze his shoulders once or twice, frowning at him.

“Guess I gotta learn to be, uh. Be one’a those, uh. Fuck, what’re they called? Fuckin’, moose, mon—monsoons?”

“Masseuse? Or, er, masseur, since you’re a bloke,” Sniper shrugged.

“Yeah! That! It—I mean, how hard can that be to learn?”

Sniper rolled his eyes, and so caught sight of Demo rounding the corner as well. Demo’s eyebrow rose when he saw Scout on the box.

“Havin’ a protest there, lad?” he asked.

“Snipes made that joke already,” Scout said.

“Damn it,” Demo muttered.

“He wanted to be tall,” Sniper deadpanned. “So he found a crate to, er… I think make fun of me?”

“Show you how tall you are,” Scout corrected.

“To show me how tall I am, compared to him,” Sniper nodded. “Turns out he’s having a lovely time.”

“Buy some heels, then, aye?” Demo suggested.

“Scout made that joke already,” Sniper said.

“_Damn it_,” Demo muttered again. “First he steals your height, now he steals my jokes, what’s next?”

“I stole Heavy’s sandwich earlier,” Scout said.

“So Heavy’s gonna steals your kneecaps, then?” Sniper asked, raised an eyebrow, and Scout bent to give him a peck on the side of the head and he had to fight down a smile. “Bloody—now you’re just impersonating me.”

“Because this is great! I’m lovin’ this!” Scout said defensively.

“Well, you get to love it for the next, er, minute twenty seconds or so, lad,” Demo informed him, glancing at his watch. “So enjoy it.”

“Aw, man,” Scout said, sounding just a little bit legitimately bummed out.

“How’s about I keep a stepstool around so you can play this game off-hours?” Sniper suggested, even as he worked hard to be deadpan.

“Hell yeah!” Scout agreed. “Fuckin’ payback for the short jokes.”

“See, difference is, though, this only works if I stand here,” Sniper pointed out, and took two steps back. “What now? What’s the plan?”

Scout’s indignant protest was largely drowned out by the intercoms coming on and announcing the match being nearly ready to start, as well as Demo’s laughter.


	59. Sniper/Scout, Sniper's Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: if it's alright can i rq a non-comic verse/au/w/e speedingbullet fic where sniper introduces scout to his parents? i've seen a lot of fics where scout introduces sniper to his family but not a lot for snipes' folks, and i think they have an interesting dynamic as well"
> 
> galaxy brain takes my dude, galaxy brain takes. in summary i think it would go Terrible  
(warning for very bad parents)]]

Sniper shifted the car into park and glared down at his steering wheel for a few long minutes. He took a deep inhale, a slow exhale. A second. A third.

“You’ve got this,” Scout said encouragingly, even as he found himself eyeing the little farmhouse out the driver’s side window. Sniper gave him a dubious glance. “No, seriously, you’ve got this!”

“Have I?”

“Snipes, it’s your mom and dad. It’s gonna be _fine_.”

Sniper took a few more deep breaths. Side-eyed the farmhouse.

“And I’m gonna be right here the whole time,” Scout reminded him, putting his hand over top of Sniper’s where it still rested on the gearshift.

Sniper looked at him, took one last deep breath, and nodded. He popped his door open, moving somewhat quickly, clearly trying to rip off the bandage as best he could.

Scout walked close as they approached the house, eyeing it further, gaze darting from the stretch of road on either side to the pasture off past the house. He squinted at the shapes out there, trying to distinguish and figure out how many sheep were over there. It was a lot.

It was a lucky thing he was looking that way, because that meant he could nudge Sniper and get his attention.

“Uh,” he said, looking back towards the flock, and Sniper followed his eye and saw the dogs there sitting at attention and staring at them.

One dog stood and barked, and that set them all off, and they bolted over towards the pair, barking furiously.

Sniper wrapped an arm around Scout’s waist and moved him half-behind him, pulling his sunglasses off and staring down the dogs. “Oi, none of that!” he called as they approached, and the dogs skidded to a stop when they got to him, still going absolutely bananas but significantly less aggressively than before, starting to nose at and lick his hands excitedly, practically bowling him over as they bumped happily at his legs. “Awright, awright, ‘llo to you too.”

They seemed pretty excited about Scout, too, sniffing and nosing at him, and Scout knelt to pat one of the dogs on the head. He was promptly knocked back, the dog starting to lick him all over the face.

“No, Luna!” Sniper said firmly, tugging on the dog’s collar to get her to ease off, rolling his eyes at how Scout was laughing, clearly very endeared. “Play nice.”

“Luna’s her name?” Scout asked for confirmation, petting all over her head. “Good dog!”

“Don’t spoil ‘er, she’s a lazy one,” Sniper warned, even as he also patted at her back before shifting focus back to the three other dogs who were still very much excited. “The two kelpies are Brandy and Dig, the brown koolie is Vince and the spotty one is Luna.”

“These are good dogs,” Scout seemed to decide, squawking as he was immediately whacked in the face by a furiously-wagging tail.

“Mickey?”

Both of their heads whipped around to look at the source of the voice. Scout was surprised to see the little old woman who was standing there, her glasses big and round and her eyes squinted slightly as if disbelieving. Sniper shifted. “Hi, mum,” he mumbled, just loud enough to be heard over the dogs barking, helping Scout to his feet.

“Mickey!” she exclaimed, bundling down the stairs and hurrying over to embrace him. He shifted to make the process easier. “Oh, you’re here so much earlier than I thought you’d be, dear! Thought you’d be another day, surely!”

“No, said—said it’d be today,” he murmured hesitantly.

“Oh, I’m sure you did, but it’s always so hard to travel during the holidays,” she tsk’d, patting his cheek good-naturedly. “I worry is all.”

“Well, everything was fine,” he shrugged awkwardly.

“Of course. Well, come in and see your father, dear, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you!”

And just like that she was moving back up the steps of the porch and into the house.

Scout was too surprised to say anything, and blinked a few times. “Uh… Snipes, she’s not, like, blind or something, right?” he asked gently. “She didn’t even _look_ at me.”

Sniper inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. “Bugger,” he finally said.

Scout looked around the inside of the house with great interest, surprised by a few things. First of all, that it was so thoroughly an old person’s house—the various assorted knickknacks and decorations, the way it was laid out, _everything_ felt very much like something he’d have seen in his grandad’s house, or other houses occupied by people of a similar age. And that made sense, because Sniper’s parents were indeed fairly old. And Sniper had brought that up before they got there, when Scout had found a picture of them, that they’d both been in their late thirties when they had him, and worked with sheep out in the sun for so much of their lives, so of course they’d aged all the more because of it.

“Shoes off!” was barked at the both of them before they could even step properly through the door. Scout had to take a knee to untie his shoes to get them off, while Sniper could toe out of his own pretty easily.

“…’llo, dad,” Sniper said after a second when the man at the armchair facing away from them—presumably Sniper’s dad—didn’t say anything else.

No response.

“Mickey dear,” his mother said, returning from a room down the hall holding a box. “You already knew we turned your room into a guest room ages back, but I’m afraid I’ll need a tick to put the bedding on—“

“It’s awright, mum,” Sniper was quick to assure.

“I can do that,” Scout offered helpfully.

“Oh, so he knows how to make a bed? I wouldn’t have expected” Sniper’s mum asked in a way that almost sounded like faux-surprised, not looking at him as she put the box on the table and shifted the tablecloth neatly. Scout shrank.

“I—no, I, I can… I know how to make a bed,” he confirmed carefully.

“Well, linens are in a basket by the bed then,” Sniper’s mom said, and disappeared from sight again.

“…Anything good on?” Sniper asked towards the still-silent armchair, glancing at the TV and back.

No response.

“Dear, any idea what you’d want for dinner?” Sniper’s mum asked, returning with a second box to also put on the table.

“I’m not picky,” he shrugged, looked over at Scout. “You?”

“I mean, I don’t care,” Scout also shrugged, hands stuffed into his back pockets. “I like pretty much everything.”

“I’m sure you do,” Sniper’s mum said neutrally, and Scout was still trying to figure out how exactly to respond to that when she spoke again. “Might just make some soup then, Mickey, unless you’ve got a suggestion.”

“Any suggestions, dad?” Sniper asked the armchair.

No response.

“I’ll need to go send the dogs back to work, then I’ll start cooking,” Sniper’s mum said, and gave him another pat on the shoulder as she passed by him, and Scout needed to dodge out of the way as she threatened to bowl right through him to go outside.

A pause, a hard exhale from Sniper. “Bloody hate it here,” Sniper mumbled.

“Free to leave any time you like,” Sniper’s dad snipped from the couch.

“Oh, you heard _that_ one, then?” Sniper snapped right back. “Good to know.”

Scout tapped the back of Sniper’s hand to get his attention. “Uh, I’m gonna grab our bags and stuff, where are we sleeping?” he asked quietly, and Sniper exhaled again and tugged him along.

Sniper pulled him into a room and shut the door behind them, leaning on it heavily and sighing hard, pulling a hand down his face. “Bloody _hate it here_,” he repeated, all the more bitter with the additional volume he was allowed.

“Fuckin’ _sheesh_, Snipes, you talked about your dad and made it sound like he was just sort of an asshole, but wow! That’s—“ Words briefly escaped him. “Like, he’s your _dad_, why’s he acting like that?”

“He’s always like that,” Sniper muttered.

“And… wh—so your mom just, what, doesn’t… _like_ me? I think?” he asked, visibly confused.

“Neither of them do,” Sniper replied. “Thought—I really thought mum would at least hold out until she met you, talked to you a bit, but… I’m sorry, I, it was a mistake coming out here—“

“No, no, it’s okay,” Scout assured quickly, stepping forward and putting hands on Sniper’s shoulders, squeezing comfortingly. “It’s—we’ll figure this out. Okay, what—what’s the problem? Why doesn’t your mom like me?”

“She doesn’t think I’m at all capable of taking care of myself and always wanted me to get a partner, ideally a wife, who would be able to take care of me because I can’t,” Sniper rattled off tonelessly. “And she doesn’t think you can take care of yourself, let alone me too. Among other things.”

Scout blinked. “…Okay. So we don’t have time to unpack all that.”

“Right.”

“…_But_, I, I just gotta… show your mom that I can take care of both of us!”

“Right?” Sniper repeated, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah! Look, I can make the bed, help with dinner, help clean up—whatever else needs doin’—and then she’ll see that I’ve totally got this and it’ll be great!”

“You never make _my_ bed,” Sniper pointed out, tone tilting just a little bit to the left into joking territory.

“Yeah, because you’re a grown man and you don’t need help with that stuff, especially from me. I’m not your maid, I’m your boyfriend. I help you out in all kinds of other ways,” Scout shrugged.

“Like?” Sniper asked, intrigued.

“Like, talkin’ to you about stuff you like, telling you how much I like you and how great you are, hearing you out when you’re upset about stuff, being around to make you feel better when you’re doin’ stuff like this that you hate and that make you feel like garbage,” Scout listed off, and Sniper blinked, realizing how much of that was accurate. “But apparently your mom doesn’t care about any of that, like, mushy crap, so I’ll do things her way.”

“That’s a lot of work,” Sniper said hesitantly.

“Then I’ll do a lot of work,” Scout shrugged. “I wanna get along with your family, at least a little.”

“I don’t get along with yours,” Sniper pointed out.

“Eh, you’ll meet my Ma someday and she’ll fuckin’ love you, you’ve probably already got a spot at the dinner table,” Scout brushed off, turning and glancing around the room. “Okay. I’ll make the bed, you…”

“I’ll just,” Sniper said, and took a seat at the chair next to the dresser.

“Cool.”

* * *

Scout made the bed in the guest room and did the vast majority of the work making the soup that would be dinner. He then also cleaned, dried, and put back away the bowls, washed the utensils and pots, cleaned off the stove where there’d been a minor spill, and went to go get he and Sniper’s bags from the camper.

Sniper’s dad didn’t eat with them at the table, just remaining in front of the TV facing away and not talking to anyone except to occasionally snap at Sniper if he got anywhere near mentioning work or complaining about anything, even jokingly. Sniper’s mum, meanwhile, continued to make the occasional patronizing or passive-aggressive comment about how Scout did things. She described how he acted as “…interesting”, and made more overt comments on him and Sniper’s relationship when Sniper wasn’t in the room, and very clearly was watching him like a hawk.

“Never been on a farm before?” she asked at one point.

“Oh, nah, not really, no farms or nothin’ in Boston, big city and all,” Scout replied.

“Hmm,” she said, tone implying that she meant _something_ by that, but she did not elaborate upon what.

“You awright?” Sniper asked him gently as Scout finally crawled into bed, feeling a little exhausted in more than a few ways.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice to sleep on a bigger bed like this,” Scout said cheerfully, managing to muster a smile.

“I meant about my mum,” Sniper clarified.

“It’s—I’ll be fine,” Scout said, and curled up against Sniper, and Sniper dropped it.

The next day, they spent a good chunk of the day out around the sheep, Sniper talking about some of the technical aspects of things that he needed to know growing up. Scout spent a good chunk of time playing fetch with the working dogs, who seemed absolutely elated at how far and fast he could pitch a baseball (completely demolished by the end of the day, but luckily Scout had others in his bag), and Sniper spent any time they weren’t playing trying to get the dogs to back off a bit and stop trying to jump and lick at his face and hands. They were clearly very happy to see him.

Sniper walked him around showed him some different places in a radius of the house, explaining assorted stories from his childhood. The place where he got that scar, the place where he would practice shooting a toy bow so he could be like Robin Hood, the rock he would climb all the time, the tree he spent a summer trying to secretly build a fort in only to have it knocked over by storms a few times. And there really was a youthfulness to Sniper’s face as he explained all the different things he would get up to in his downtime, the adventures he would try and take himself on.

He also showed Scout a fair share of different critters and bugs, whenever he spotted them on trees or branches or rocks, and seemed to enjoy Scout’s skiddishness and panic whenever he pointed out any that were particularly close. By the end of their little walk, Scout was constantly brushing at his arms and legs, and occasionally asking Sniper if there was something on his back or in his hair. In his defense, there was a fly at one point, and a gnat up above one ear that needed brushed away at a different point.

He informed Scout that he wouldn’t last a week out in the bush. Scout informed him that he wasn’t goddamn planning on it in the scary mutant fucked up bug country. Sniper asked him what it meant that he was dating the guy from scary mutant fucked up bug country. Scout informed him that actually Sniper was one of the mutant bugs. Sniper laughed.

Scout made both of them lunch—some sandwiches—since when they got back, Sniper’s mum was nowhere to be seen, and Sniper’s dad ignored him outright when he hesitantly asked if he wanted anything. And they spent a while longer with Sniper showing Scout some of the very few things his parents had kept as souvenirs from his childhood, in the little closet of his childhood-bedroom-turned-guest-room. And once it was in his memory, he kept talking for a while, explaining all sorts of different things, telling Scout story after story once he was on track. It was nice.

Sniper’s mum came back at some point, and peeked in the open door to the room to greet them and check in. Told Sniper she was so sorry, she just needed to do some shopping, and oh, didn’t Sniper’s dad tell them where she’d gone? And oh they probably hadn’t had lunch and were starving—

And Scout helped put away groceries, expressed enthusiasm and tried to ask questions about the farm. Good questions, real questions, about the things Sniper had said he didn’t know. About what they did with the extra land since they apparently didn’t keep as many sheep anymore, about whether that meant they didn’t need to hire on any hands, about whether they might consider hiring on more hands or just retiring outright at some point.

Sniper’s mum had said in the sweetest voice that she was sure a young man like him who’d grown up in a city wouldn’t understand even if she told him.

Sniper took him out to play with the dogs some more, let him work that particular hit out of his system by pitching the baseball as hard as he could towards the horizon line, and he’d calmed down a bit by the time dinner rolled around, and helped again, cleaned up again. And at some point he ended up sweeping the kitchen, although he couldn’t say how he’d gotten roped into doing so.

There was an argument at the table. Scout suspected it was because this time, Sniper’s dad joined them.

“Oh, Snipes, could you—“ Scout asked at one point, gesturing towards the salt shaker, which Sniper passed. “Thanks.”

“That what they call you out there?” Sniper’s dad asked, speaking for the first time all day as far as Scout knew.

Sniper took a breath. “Who is ‘they’ and where is ‘out there’?” he asked calmly.

“The murderers you work with in America,” his dad clarified.

Sniper’s hands tightened on the table. Scout’s eyes flicked between the two of them. “…No, I’m the only one who calls him that,” Scout said carefully.

“So you _are_ one of those maniacs?” he asked next, and Scout frowned.

“Ignore him,” Sniper told Scout, no small amount of bitterness in his voice.

“Be nice, Mickey,” Sniper’s mum admonished.

“What, it’s not nice to ignore people? Clearly dad doesn’t agree, he’s been doing that ever since I got here,” Sniper said, a little bit snappish.

“Snipes, it’s fine,” Scout assured quietly, even as he visibly fought the urge to shrink a little in his seat.

“It’s not fine!” Sniper said, voice rising. “I come back for the first time in a year to introduce you to the bloody love of my life and _this_ is how you’re treating him?!”

“I’m the love of your life?” Scout asked quietly, and was largely ignored.

“Oh, sure, you bring a murderer into our house and home on vacation from killing people, what on earth could be wrong with that?” Sniper’s dad asked sarcastically. “You bring home the second-skinniest bloke I’ve ever seen in my life and try and tell me you’re going anywhere, and you think I’m going to take any of this seriously.”

“Second-skinniest? Who was first?” Sniper snapped, confused.

“You,” Sniper’s dad snickered.

Sniper took four actions in response to that. He clenched his fists, he stood up from his chair, he marched away into the guest room, and he slammed the door behind him.

For a second, silence. “Isn’t that just like him,” Sniper’s dad scoffed after that second.

“Really shouldn’t slam the door,” Sniper’s mum said.

“Holy shit, _fuck_ you guys,” Scout decided internally, and stood up and followed after him.

He made sure to shut the door behind himself, albiet much more gingerly than Sniper had. Sniper was facedown on the bed, face buried in a pillow.

Silence, for a long moment. Scout didn’t say anything. Sniper didn’t say anything.

“So I’m the love of your life?” Scout asked, semi-jokingly, hoping to break through the tension.

Nothing. Sniper didn’t respond.

He sat down on the bed next to him, and Sniper breathed a hard sigh. “I’m 30 years old, and still upset about fights with my mum and dad,” he said, laughing humorlessly. “This is all just… just so _ridiculous_.”

“Hey, in your defense, all that out there was total bullshit, they were being assholes,” Scout said.

A pause from Sniper before he spoke. “Thanks,” he seemed to decide. “Just, bugger, what am I meant to do?”

“Maybe… we _do_ head out tomorrow,” Scout decided carefully. “Stay in the city until we gotta go back to work. You can show me a zoo or something, we can see more of your batshit crazy animals. Eat at a nice restaurant.”

“Please,” Sniper agreed, exhaling, relaxing bodily at the idea. “Please, bugger. Seen the dogs, seen the sheep, seen the parents, nothing left to do.”

“Yeah. We—we can head out tomorrow morning maybe. Breakfast then drive.”

“Brekkie then drive,” Sniper agreed. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” A pause. “Let’s circle back around to when you said I was the love of your life.”

Sniper shifted, propping his head up on his arms to look over at Scout. “What about it?” he asked.

Scout paused. “…I dunno, just… I dunno. Big words.”

“Yeah.”

Scout, for a minute, considered unpacking that further, but ended up just leaning in to kiss Sniper firmly on the lips to let him know exactly what he thought of that particular sentiment.

The next morning they packed their things back up. Scout was in the process of packing his own bag when he heard Sniper in the kitchen telling his mum they were leaving, and tried to keep up with what he was saying when he realized Sniper was telling a bit of a white lie.

“Change of plans, we’re needed back a bit sooner than we thought we’d be,” Sniper said. “Sorry, mum.”

“Oh, but dear! You’ve only just gotten here!” she said, sounding legitimately broken up about it.

“Boss’s orders, nothing I can do about it,” Sniper explained.

“Well, put me on the phone with that boss of yours!” she seemed to decide.

“Mum, I-I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can!”

By the time Scout had put his own bag in the camper, the argument had migrated to the porch and gained a participant.

“Oh, so what, you’re going back early? Can’t miss out on any heads to pop, then?” Sniper’s dad challenged.

“Look, I’d rather keep my job, awright?”

“Well that makes one of us!”

“Mickey,” his mum said, taking hold of his hands. “Really, it’s unreasonable. You should get more than just a few days off to be with family.”

“I—look, I’ve really got to go,” he insisted, trying to pull back.

Scout moved to stand with him, frowning a little. He was ignored. “Dear, at least stay for lunch,” his mum offered.

“That’ll be in a few hours, and I’d really like to be on the road by then,” Sniper replied.

“Did you even have breakfast?”

“He made some for me,” Sniper said, ticking his head towards Scout.

“Oh,” Sniper’s mum said, giving him a tight, plastic smile. “I’m sure he did.”

“Awright, you need to stop that,” Sniper all but snapped, voice kept carefully in control.

“What do you mean, dear?” she asked lightly.

“Don’t snap at your mother,” Sniper’s dad said firmly.

“Snipes, let’s just go,” Scout urges quietly, tugging on his sleeve.

“Yeah, go on, run back to the States to be with your murderer friends,” Sniper’s dad huffed, waving him off dismissively. “You can come back when you’ve figured things out and set your head back on straight. Tightened those loose screws back up again.”

“Shut up,” Scout snapped, and then suddenly all eyes were on him.

“Pardon?” Sniper’s dad asked, surprised and angry.

“…Yeah, shut up,” Scout decided, more firmly. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

“You have something to say about it?” Sniper’s dad challenged.

“Yeah, because you’re being an asshole,” Scout said decisively. “And you’re treating my boyfriend like garbage, and if you weren’t his dad I would have already punched your fuckin’ lights out for that kinda disrespect, old man. And that’s not because I’m a mercenary, it’s because I’m from Boston and I’ve got _standards_. I would lay you out if I was a goddamn _kindergarten teacher_.”

“Oh, Boston?” Sniper’s mum said in a vaguely disappointed tone.

“No, nah, you too! You can go ahead and shut up too! Just because you’re not worse than this guy that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, lady!” Scout declared, pointing at her accusatorily. “I’ve done nothin’ but try and be polite and helpful to you people since I got here and all you’ve done is make these weird backhanded bullshit comments at me! If you’ve got a problem, _say_ something. Don’t be a coward like this. What’s your _issue?”_

“Just that my little Mickey has decided to be with some American city-bred boy who couldn’t run a farm to save his life if—“ she started to defend.

“Yeah, I couldn’t! Which would suck if Snipes actually wanted that! And I wish I did, but no, I didn’t get to grow up on a farm, I got to grow up in a shitty apartment with seven brothers and no dad in the bad side of town! I always wanted to have a farm and a bunch of dogs and maybe some sheep or something and all kinds of places to play around and be a kid, but I couldn’t have that! And I’m really really jealous that Snipes got to have that! But I’m _not_ jealous of the fact that he had to put up with the two of _you!”_

“Scout—“ Sniper tried, but Scout barreled through it.

“I mean, fuck! Now I’m a little _glad_ I didn’t have a dad, maybe I skipped out on having to deal with an asshole like you!” Scout laughed, high and humorless. “And at least I had my brothers around and a Ma who actually _cares_ about what I want and would at least _pretend_ to be nice to anyone I brought home, because she _loves me_. Actively, on purpose, even if sometimes I do things she isn’t completely on board with! If I told her I was leaving the country to go do some job out somewhere and I wasn’t gonna live in Boston anymore, she’d wish me good luck and ask me to try and call or stop by one year for the holidays, not _whatever_ this is!”

“Scout—“ Sniper tried again.

“And I tried, I tried _so hard_ to be nice to you people! Because I love this guy right here _so goddamn much_ and I wanted to at least get along with his family. But you’ve made it pretty fuckin’ clear that you aren’t gonna give me that same courtesy, so you can just go ahead and pack up a neat little suitcase of _go fuck yourselves_ and _stop being pieces of shit to my boyfriend_. How’s _that_ for a fuckin’ cityboy?”

A very, very long silence. Behind his glasses, Sniper’s eyes were shining with pride, even as he kept his face as calm as he could.

“Finally,” Sniper’s dad huffed.

“Dear,” Sniper’s mum chided.

“Look, I don’t like you, and I don’t _plan_ on liking you any time soon,” Sniper’s dad started, and Scout’s fists clenched at his sides. “But I can respect someone who defends his partner like that.”

“He doesn’t need defending,” Scout snapped. “He’s a grown goddamn man.”

“I just worry,” Sniper’s mum said, picking up on the pointedness of that comment.

“Worry about your own fuckin’ self, lady, how about that?” Scout scoffed.

“Look,” Sniper’s dad said, still mad like a kicked cat. “I’m serious about not coming back. I won’t be having my boy weighed down by a criminal. You want any place with this family, you’re gonna need to quit being a mercenary.”

“I mean, eventually,” Scout said, shrugging. “But I wanna have some savings before then. Shitty apartment in the bad side of town. Lots of catching up to do.”

“…Oh,” Sniper’s dad said, seeming surprised by that reply.

“Let’s go, Snipes,” Scout finally said, taking Sniper’s hand and turning them, walking them towards the camper.

“Don’t forget to call, dear!” Sniper’s mum hollered before they could get too far away.

Scout flipped her off over his shoulder without looking as Sniper called back a real reply.

They drove for about five minutes before Sniper pulled the van over onto the side of the road, leaned over the gearshift, and kissed him full on the mouth.

“You’re absolutely bloody _brilliant_,” Sniper said first thing once he pulled back, eyes absolutely alight. “That was _aces_, you—bugger me, that was incredible!”

“I swore at your mom,” Scout groaned, face in his hands.

“You swore at my _mum!”_ Sniper agreed, elated.

“Why are you so excited about this?!” Scout demanded.

“Because I couldn’t do it, I—I’m not any good with words, especially when I’m angry, but you were a bloody legend!” Sniper kissed him again, for a bit longer the second time, and he was still smiling when he pulled back. “_Christ_ I love you.”

“Fuckin’—love you too,” Scout said, still confused but starting to smile a bit too. “…But like, drive. C’mon.”

“Oh, right,” Sniper murmured, putting the van into drive and pulling back onto the road.

They absolutely went to the zoo.


	60. Scout&Spy, Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: angst&hurt/comfort, where scout is anxious and doubts his skills, so he tries to calm himself by holding/hugging/whatever his plushie (or something else, idk), whilst someone is trying to get to him, to make him confess what is bothering him? idk if you wanna make it a ship ir maybe dad spy, ily -🦂"
> 
> oh dude you already KNOW dad!spy hours are 24/7 up in here. welcome to “projecting RSD onto Scout TF2 episode 85″]]

Stupid summer, stupid break, stupid losing streak. Stupid everything.

Usually Scout was excited about breaks. A week or so of getting to be off work, heading home to visit family or going on a road trip or whatever was happening. It was nice, he loved it. But this time they had explicit orders from their boss not to go anywhere or do anything. To stay on base or to go specifically exclusively to the store in the nearest town for food or whatever. He hated it. The base was too small to hang out in for more than a few days at a time. He hated it.

And not to mention that they’d finished off work on a bad note. A day of losses turning into a week of losses, half the team scrambling to try and pull together enough to get one last good push in before the break and the other half deciding to just accept the loss and do better once they got back.

And every day after battle Soldier would single out someone who wasn’t on top of their game and lecture them. And all week, instead of going for the people who were largely slacking off and not breaking their necks to try and get them some actual wins, he went after Scout, who was so frantic that he kept making stupid mistakes.

And he just… usually he argued about it, and got in a fight with Soldier, but he just… didn’t have the energy for it. The day was over. They’d lost. And Scout knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, but it kind of felt like it. Maybe if he’d tried just a little bit harder, pushed himself just a little further, he could’ve gotten the rest of the team motivated. Maybe they all would’ve picked things back up and tried too. But he couldn’t do it.

It was frustrating. He knew his job, beyond what he did on the field, was trying to keep morale up. He kept music playing, he was always up for hanging out or playing a few hands of poker or headed into town with someone to get shitty fast food. And he tried really hard to be funny and to keep things lighthearted, tried so fucking hard to keep spirits up. And he knew if he said anything about it, pointed out how literally like all of his time was spent trying to make sure everyone was feeling okay, it would…

He didn’t know. Maybe they’d just tell him off for being whiny or whatever. Maybe it would stop working so well, if they knew he was always doing it so extremely on purpose, so intentionally. He didn’t know.

But at that moment, he was feeling so much like utter garbage that he knew he had to just avoid the team so he didn’t drag the mood down further. Usually they didn’t really miss him anyways, other than idly asking if he’d gotten into any trouble while he was off doing “whatever he did”. All he knew was that him feeling like shit around everyone else would just make them feel bad too. And it was break anyways—maybe they’d just end up feeling better on their own. Especially since he wasn’t around to interrupt them.

He had plenty of food in his room, mostly chips and candy bars and stuff like that, stuff he didn’t want the guys stealing. And he’d totally share if they asked, for sure, but for that moment he was mostly just digging through the hoard for himself and doing not much of anything else.

He felt like kind of an idiot, sitting alone and eating his feelings like some kind of angsty teen in a movie or the chick in the romcom who just got broken up with. But there was nobody there to ridicule him except himself. And he did, but… the point stood.

A few days passed like that. He had food, he had the little bathroom connected to his room, he had comics to entertain himself. He slept a lot, mostly. Felt like garbage. Read some comics. Ate chocolate about it. Slept some more. He left a few times to do a few assorted things—called home like he did every week, went into the common room late one night to grab some of his records back so he could listen to them.

At one point, he got a knock on his door. He didn’t answer, couldn’t seem to find the energy to. A second knock when the first was unanswered after about twenty seconds. He still didn’t move.

The next day, another knock. This one was accompanied by words. “Scout? I know you’re in there,” Spy called, sounding annoyed.

To be honest, Scout was pretty sure he didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever Spy was about to lecture him about. So he just rolled over.

“You’ve missed every team meal for almost four days. You’re being rude,” Spy declared.

Scout reached off the side of the bed and picked up a plushie that had fallen down. It was a big, chunky pig, and he’d won it when he and Pyro had gone out to a fair and he’d knocked the ball toss game out of the park. Pyro had taken three of the plushies he’d won, and insisted he keep the fourth for himself.

He felt like even more of a dumb baby, sitting there cradling a stuffed animal like he was scared to head off to his first day of kindergarten, but he was already too tired and filled with vague unrest for it to get to him much.

At some point he heard a heavy sigh and the clack of fancy shoes moving away down the hallway, and Scout relaxed.

Twenty minutes later, a knock.

“Scout, let me in,” Spy said firmly.

“Fuck off, Spy,” Scout snapped.

“Scout, if you don’t open the door, I’m going to,” Spy declared.

“Bullshit.”

A heavy sigh, and then a few moments later the door swung open.

“What the fuck?” Scout asked, lifting his head to glare towards the door as Spy stepped inside.

“I know how to pick locks, Scout. You know this.” Spy squinted to try to get used to the light, the blinds having been drawn. “I’m turning a light on.”

Scout just grumbled, dropping his head back into the plush pig. In his periphery, the light was indeed turned on. There was a beat of silence.

“I brought a plate from dinner. I was concerned you would get scurvy, since you now apparently have the diet of an eight year old child who was given a hundred dollars and left unsupervised at the grocery store,” Spy said dryly.

“I don’t want your fuckin’ handouts, Spy,” Scout muttered, muffled.

“It’s not a handout, it’s the fact that I refuse to have anyone on the team besides me whose teeth are falling out. Take the food.”

“Fuck off.”

Spy sighed again, and after a moment he moved to put the plate on the bedside table. Scout prickled at the proximity, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking up.

“I noticed that while you haven’t been at dinner, you still took the time to leave a thumb tack on my chair. Usually when you do that it’s because you’re angry with me. What exactly have I done?”

“I’m not mad at you, I’m just mad,” Scout grumbled.

“You know, it’s very childish to refuse to look at someone when they are trying to talk to you.”

“Guess I’ll just keep being the dumb idiot kid of the team then, huh?” Scout snapped.

Silence for a moment. “Scout. You’ve locked yourself away in your room and refused to come out again for several days. I know that something is wrong. The team does too—they’re starting to worry.”

“That might just be the most obvious lie you’ve ever fuckin’ told me, Spy,” Scout practically spat, and was glad to have his voice muffled, because suddenly it went a little tight.

“Is it that hard to believe that perhaps your teammates care about you?” Spy asked, a little sharply.

“It’s _me_, in case you haven’t noticed,” Scout said next, getting his voice back under control. “People don’t hang around me on purpose. They put up with me. And then they stop putting up with me at some point.”

“That’s not true,” Spy said, tone leaving no room for argument, but Scout elbowed some argument in anyways.

“All seven of my brothers, every fuckin’ date I’ve ever been on, the standing ban sayin’ I can’t go in Engie’s workshop or in Heavy’s workspace down by the boiler or the infirmary unless I’m actually seriously injured—“ Scout listed off, ticking off on his fingers, keeping his face hidden. “My own fucking _dad_ decided he couldn’t fucking stand me and I was _two years old_, Spy, what the _hell_ does that tell you? I’m an annoying little piece of shit and that’s all I’m ever gonna be and then one of these days I’m gonna die for real out in this hellhole desert and ain’t a single damn person out here will have ever even bothered to learn the name that’s supposed to go on my gravestone.”

Dead silence in the room. Scout’s arm fell back down by his side. His voice was shaky when he spoke again.

“Nobody’s ever even asked,” he managed. “Demo’s real name is Tavish, Heavy’s real name is Mikhal but his sisters call him Misha. And plenty of you guys get asked about it all the time but you don’t wanna say. And nobody’s ever even fuckin’ asked me.”

Silence for a few more seconds.

“I’m a whole person,” Scout said next. “I’m really into sci-fi. I’ve read every mainline issue comic book ever published after ‘35. I know how to cook and draw and I know the all the stats of every person on every major league baseball team. I was in theater in high school between track and baseball season in the winters and I and got a lead role on some Shakespearicles thing before it got cancelled because of budget cuts. I bet _you_ didn’t even know that.”

“I didn’t,” Spy admitted.

“And why would you? Who the fuck cares? It’s just dumb scrawny idiot Scout, who the fuck cares what his deal is? He can barely do his job and read any word that’s over four syllables, who cares what he does? He ain’t nothin’ today, he must never have been somethin’ in the first place.”

“Scout—“

_“Tell me I’m wrong_, Spy,” he snapped, voice cracking down the middle.

“You’re _wrong_. Scout, what’s going on?” Spy asked, and his voice sounded closer, like he’d taken a knee. “What happened?”

He understood, logically, that telling Spy damn near anything was a bad idea. He sold information for a living. But logic hadn’t ever been much help to him, and anyways, he was pretty sure he was about to break down either way, and he could either cry like a dumb little baby and Spy could go to the rest of the team and tell them about stupid Scout and his crying for no reason, or he could at least sort of maybe a little bit sound justified and a little bit less completely unhinged.

“We lost all week because I fuckin’ _suck_ at my job, and we don’t get to go off base for some goddamn reason, and I miss my family, and I—“ God damn it, he hoped to at least get to a second sentence before he broke, but here came the waterworks. “—and I know the team doesn’t give a shit, and if they even noticed they probably think I’m being some idiot baby, and I’m just so fuckin’ _tired_ of all of this, alright? I’m just so goddamn exhausted, _all_ the time, and no matter what I do I can’t make my own stupid, shitty, _broken_-ass brain shut up, and I…”

There was a hand on his shoulder, now. For some reason that’s what unstuck the sob in his throat.

“And I just miss my mom,” he managed, and sobbed again. “And I know that just makes me a _stupid_ fucking baby—“

“Scout, it doesn’t,” Spy said firmly.

“Bullshit.”

A sigh, less exasperated than the others. “Scout, I miss my own parents. Often. Heavy writes to his mother, the Bushman calls home once a week and stays on the phone for an hour at a time. Do you think they would do that if they didn’t miss them?”

Scout couldn’t seem to find his voice, and just sniffled a little.

“If anything, it’s good that you miss your mother. You are appreciating her now, while she’s still part of your life, rather than later on when she’s gone. That’s a good thing.”

“Here I am cryin’ over dumb shit—“

“The fact that you’re even capable of tears shows that you haven’t completely sealed yourself off from your emotions like several of our testosterone-puppet teammates. I’m fairly certain that Medic surgically removed his own tear ducts. I think Soldier is so dehydrated that he’s incapable of it. And rather than sweat he needs to cover himself in liquid-like food products or else he’ll die of heat stroke.”

Despite everything, that made Scout laugh, just a little. More of a hiccup than anything else.

“Admittedly, you have greater social needs than several of our team, and they need to take breaks. Not just from you, but from everyone. It’s part of being human, everyone requires some amount of time alone or else they start losing their minds. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you—value the things you do for this team, even. Every time someone would like company when going in to town for any reason, they always ask me where you are. And you’ve given good film recommendations to everyone except for the Sniper.”

“Guy hates movies,” Scout defended weakly.

“You keep recommending horror films. As it turns out, he is a fan of romantic comedies.”

“Fuckin’ what? Seriously?”

“I was shocked too. His complete lack of taste in all areas of his life continues to amaze me.”

Scout scoffed at that. A beat of silence.

“What I am saying is that the team doesn’t simply put up with you. You’re impossible to simply put up with, you take up too big a part of everyone’s life here. Instead, they must like and respect you.” A pause. “And your father must have truly been an idiot. Anyone with two eyes would be proud of the challenges you’ve faced and overcome with all of the disadvantages you’ve been dealt over your lifetime.”

Scout sniffled, wiped his eyes with his forearm, finally managed to look up at Spy. “Anyone with two eyes? You sayin’ _you’re_ proud of me, then?” he asked, even if it was a little shaky.

“I feel no strong emotions,” Spy deadpanned.

“Alright, nevermind about earlier. _That’s_ the most obvious lie you’ve ever told me.”

Spy rolled his eyes, standing, brushing off the knee of his suit.

Scout looked at the plate, made a face. “Aw man, what the fuck, is that _asparagus?_ Is Medic back on trying to make us eat healthy again?”

“The Engineer cooked it, stop complaining and just eat it,” Spy said, quickly falling back into his role of naggy just on the near side of patronizing.

“C’mon, it couldn’t have been like, mashed potatoes or broccoli or somethin’?”

“You always douse those things in salt and butter. That combined with the energy drinks means you’re going to get a heart condition before _I_ do.”

“Just get the fuck outta my room, Spy,” Scout huffed, putting the stuffed animal aside and moving to pick up the plate and utensils.

“Very well. And go talk to Demoman at some point, he’s been whining about nobody wanting to go get fast food with him for two days,” Spy said as he walked to the door. “And you can’t borrow my car to go.”

“Fuck you, Spy,” Scout said flippantly, waving him off.

“Fuck you too,” Spy said just as casually, and made sure to close the door behind him.


	61. Spy&Scout, Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [["Anonymous asked: I love your idea of scout bein born early. Would it be too much trouble for you to write abt him bein in the hospital? And maybe possibly spy findin out?"
> 
> this feels like a slightly different angle than the prompt, anon, but in my defense that’s what always happens  
(warnings for alcohol mention, non-graphic injury and briefly being in a hospital)]]

The phone rang three times before it was picked up, and Scout used all three of those rings to try and get his story straight in his head. Then it was picked up and a familiar and very pleasant voice said “Hey, this is Pauling,” and he wasted exactly zero seconds to start talking.

“Alright so I kinda need some help, Miss P,” he opened with, because frankly those were some cards he knew were gonna end up on the table no matter how he played this.

“What did you do?” she asked immediately, and fuck, she was on to him.

“I—listen, I didn’t even do anything.”

“What did you do?” she asked again.

“…So, okay, promise you won’t be mad.”

“I’m already mad, Scout. What did you do?”

Scout worked hard for about three seconds to figure out a good way to phrase the next few sentences. “…So I was just at this bar, right, and I was minding my _own_ goddamn business—“

_“Scout.”_

“I was!” he said, a little defensive. “Seriously! And this guy sees me across the bar, and, y’know, figures out I’m one of those guys from the newspaper who keeps causing trouble—“

“Were you in uniform?” she asked dryly.

“Nah, but, uh, Soldier and Cyclops were there, and some of the other guys were there earlier, and Soldier had his stupid helmet on, so, y’know. Bunch of foreigners and some G.I. Joe lookin’ guy, wouldn’t be hard to piece it together. And most of the guys left, and Soldier and Demo walk off, and I’m left alone just finishing my drink before I head out, like ya do.”

“Like you do,” Miss Pauling hesitantly agreed.

“And this guy goes, hey, three dudes is a lot, but I could take this one guy. And he comes up to me, right, all like ‘Hey what’s up I’m a drunk dude who wants to get in a fight like an asshole’ and I’m like ‘Hey nah I’m good actually’ because like, I’m busy and that’s stupid, right?”

“Right,” Miss Pauling agreed. “Really stupid.”

“Right! So I’m like, ‘Hey, fuck off pal’ and he just takes a fuckin’ swing at me, and I’m like ‘Hey actually fuck this I already paid I’m just gonna get outta here’ and I try to leave, but the dude just like—just grabs me by the arm and breaks my fuckin’ wrist, and I knock my whole glass over because holy shit, and a whole fuckin’ brawl kicks off, right—?”

“So long story short you need me to pick you up from jail again,” Miss Pauling cut in, voice laced with heavy exasperation.

“Nah, bartender saw everything and I didn’t get in any trouble. I, uh. I need you to pick me up from the hospital, actually,” he said, glancing over his shoulder as a nurse wheeled a cart by.

_“Scout.”_

“Look, I would’a just headed back to base, but it was like two in the morning and Medic was probably asleep and the bartender guy was bein’ all nice about it and how am I supposed to tell him I’ve got this crazy German guy who fixes all my bones and shit and don’t gotta go to a real hospital?” he asked, a little defensive. “Then they wouldn’t let me leave unless someone drove me because I’ve got a cast on and can’t drive, and I figured I shouldn’t wake you up or whatever at like four in the morning, so, I ended up taking a nap on a bench, and now it’s like ten so I figured you wouldn’t be mad.”

“Well, I can’t drive you back to base—“

“Aww, what?” he whined.

“—because I’m _currently_ in Japan on business.”

“Oh. Okay, that’s fair,” he admitted.

“But I’ll send someone to pick you up,” she said. “Be ready to go in two hours.”

“Sure thing. Who are you sending?” Scout asked.

“I’ll send Spy,” she replied, and kept talking before Scout could start to complain. “Look, maybe now you’ll learn not to get in bar fights.”

“Miss P, c’mon!” he whined.

“I’m sending him. Two hours,” Miss Pauling said, and hung up on him, at which point he sighed so hard he got looks from two nurses down the hall.

Spy pulled up in his nice shiny car an hour and forty-five minutes later, and gave him a look that immediately made him feel guilty even though it totally wasn’t his fault that he was in this situation. He shifted on his feet for a second before heading over to the car. Silence.

“Wanna sign my cast?” Scout joked.

“Just get in the car.”

He did, deciding that maybe further hilarious commentary wasn’t going to help him out this time. Silence for a second. 

He reached for the radio. Spy smacked his hand away. “Put on your seatbelt,” Spy said flatly, and Scout did, although it was a bit of a struggle one-handed, and they pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

About thirty seconds of quiet again before Spy broke it. “So you’re a hired mercenary, but one drunk man in a bar can break your arm?” Spy asked.

“Go to hell, Spy,” Scout mumbled.

“I just find it interesting is all,” Spy said, tone light. “That we apparently need to babysit you or else you’ll end up in the morning paper.”

“What?”

Spy reached down between his door and the seat and pulled forth a newspaper, which he promptly tossed into Scout’s lap. “Third page.”

Scout flipped the newspaper open and found that there was indeed an article there. A brawl at the bar, minor property damage, five people arrested and several more fined, two sent to the hospital. He wasn’t mentioned by name, but he did see himself in the background of the picture beside the title.

“You’d think you would have the awareness not to get caught in a… brawl, I believe they called it?” Spy asked.

“Hey, I keep my head on a swivel,” Scout defended, closing the newspaper and tossing it into the backseat. “Everything was fine until Cyclops and Helmet-Head ditched me.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was,” Spy hummed.

Scout frowned. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No, I’m just certain that you’re giving the full unbiased truth, even though I theoretically have no way of verifying anything you say to me about what happened,” Spy shrugged, eyes on the road.

Scout frowned further. “You callin’ me a liar?”

“No, I’m calling you a _bad_ liar,” Spy said dryly.

“Well it’s _true_, that’s really what happened,” Scout said, a little offended.

“It doesn’t matter to me either way, I just wanted you to know that you need better cover stories if you want to continue getting away with your usual shenanigans.”

“Whatever, Spy,” Scout scoffed, glaring out the window.

About a minute and a half of complete silence. Scout got bored glancing around his side of the car and spent a good minute just picking at his cast before he realized he probably shouldn’t do that. He ended up reaching for the radio.

“No,” Spy droned.

“Aw, c’mon! Can’t we listen to _something?_” Scout complained. “It’s like forty minutes until we get back to base.”

“If you didn’t get in a bar fight and break your arm, it would be zero minutes. But you did, and I’m not listening to your terrible taste in music for forty minutes just because you can’t keep yourself out of trouble.”

Scout pouted over that for a minute or two before he thought of a good retort. “…Y’know, technically the guy probably only even jumped me because I was alone,” he said.

“Correct.”

“And I was only alone because you and all the other guys ditched me.”

“Succinct.”

“So this is _kinda sorta basically_ your fault.”

Spy’s expression didn’t change. “…_My_ fault?” he repeated.

“Yeah. If you didn’t ditch me, I wouldn’t have gotten jumped.”

Spy’s expression didn’t change.

“So you should let me turn on the radio.”

“_Mon dieu_, perhaps you should have been a lawyer,” he deadpanned.

Silence. “…So can I turn on the radio?”

“Don’t make me regret it,” Spy said, and Scout leaned over to fiddle with the dial, grinning.

He really didn’t think Spy would put up with the sort of stuff he usually listened to in the car, so he ended up putting on a station with something old enough that Spy probably didn’t hate it. And Spy didn’t turn it off or pull over to dump him on the side of the road, so apparently he picked something alright.

Ten minutes without talking. Scout looked out his window and tried to remember not to pick at his cast. Because he was looking out the window, he pretty easily caught sight of a sign advertising a diner.

He looked over at a Spy. Spy didn’t look back.

“Can we get diner food?” Scout asked.

“No,” Spy said.

“Please?” Scout asked.

“No,” Spy said.

“Please?” Scout asked.

“_Tell me_ you aren’t seriously going to try this game,” Spy said, already looking annoyed. “You’re a grown man.”

“I’m hungry!”

“Then get something to eat at the base,” Spy said.

“I’m hungry and I have a broken arm and I’m gonna have to deal with Medic fixing my broken arm and also all the guys making fun of me. Can we please get diner food?” Scout asked,

Spy paused for a long moment. Scout’s eyes kept flicking between Spy and the upcoming exit. Spy sighed heavily and moved to take the exit. Scout cheered. “I can still change my mind,” Spy threatened. Scout shut up.

Scout double-checked his pockets for his wallet twice before they even pulled into the parking lot. It didn’t look particularly busy, but Spy didn’t pull up near the door anyways. He put the car into park and gave Scout the single most unimpressed look of his life.

“I’m giving you five minutes to order and get back in this car or I’m leaving without you,” he declared.

“Did you want anything?” Scout asked, fumbling with his seatbelt.

“Do I want terrible greasy American diner food?” Spy scoffed.

“Look, just thought I’d fuckin’ ask, alright? Jesus,” Scout mumbled, managing to get his seatbelt off. “And that doesn’t answer my question. Do you want anything?”

“Four minutes and fifty seconds,” Spy drawled, and Scout quickly got out of the car.

There wasn’t anyone in line, and luckily the diner was staffed by the kind of people who didn’t ask questions beyond giving a pointed glance towards his cast. He kept his order simple and kept an eye on the clock on the wall, and bolted back into the parking lot with the paper bag of food in hand wondering if Spy would seriously actually ditch him.

Surprisingly, Spy had left on the radio, and raised an eyebrow at him as he tried his best to bundle himself into the car one-handed. He managed to get his seatbelt on with only a minor scare about almost spilling the food, and promptly started digging through it as Spy pulled them back out of the parking lot.

“Here,” Scout chirped, holding something out to him. Spy frowned, glancing at his mirrors and taking what was being handed to him distractedly. They were out of the parking lot and back on the road by the time Spy actually looked at it.

“What is this?” he asked dryly, looking at the paper-wrapped something.

“Chicken sandwich,” Scout replied, pulling his own food out. “I uh, I think I got ketchup in here too—“

“Why did you get me a sandwich?”

“Why not?” Scout shrugged, unwrapping his burger and glancing it over before taking a bite and frowning. “Aw, man, I wanted cheese on this. Damn.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

“I mean, if you don’t want it, I’ll probably eat it.”

“No,” Spy said, and hesitated. He waited until they were at a stoplight before moving to unwrap the sandwich, glancing it over with a critical eye. Scout noticed that he didn’t take it completely out of the paper even when he did move to start eating it, instead using the paper to hold it. Probably worried about grease or something on his dumb gloves. Usually Scout would make fun of him about it, but he was pretty sure he was very close to getting kicked out of the car.

He wolfed down his hamburger (even without cheese) and started getting to work on his french fries, being extra careful due to the fact that he was pretty sure Spy would kill him if he dropped a fry in his nice, fancy, very very clean car.

He could only play it cool for so long once a joke occurred to him, though. He grinned, taking a fry and holding it between two fingers up near his face. “Hey, look, I’m you,” Scout joked, pretending to take a drag.

Spy spared him a glance and promptly rolled his eyes, returning to glaring at the road. “Not even close.”

“Aww, what?” Scout complained.

“First of all, I’m better dressed,” Spy quipped. “Second of all, I’m taller, and third of all, I didn’t get my arm put in a case because of a bar fight. Shall I continue? The list goes on.”

“Well why are you gettin’ personal about it?” Scout asked, bristling. “I was just makin’ a joke, sheesh.”

“How was I meant to know? Usually jokes are funny,” Spy said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Scout didn’t have a good comeback for that, just sinking in his seat and moving to look back out the window.

A good ten minutes of silence again, broken only by the radio and the hum of the car. Scout finished his fries and put his trash back in the bag the way that Spy seemed to be doing, then crossed his arms over himself and just looked out the window at all the nothing. Silence. Road.

Surprisingly, Spy spoke first. “You’ve missed two Volkswagen Beetles,” he noted.

Scout didn’t say anything.

“Usually when we pass one of those you punch me very hard on the arm and I almost crash the car because you’re an idiot.”

Scout sunk further in his seat, but didn’t say anything.

“Am I meant to gather from this that the way to get you to _stop_ doing that is by making you angry with me? Because if so, clearly I’ll need to be much worse to you from now on if I want to keep this vehicle in one piece.”

“Like that’s even possible for you,” Scout said under his breath.

“I didn’t need to come pick you up from the hospital, nor did I need to let you turn on the radio, nor did I need to pull over to allow you to get food from the diner,” Spy pointed out. “All things considered, I’ve been very nice to you so far.”

“What a saint,” Scout mumbled sarcastically.

Silence. “Do you have something to say?”

“I don’t wanna fuckin’ talk about this, alright Spy?” Scout finally huffed.

“And why not?”

“Look, I’ve had a shitty night, okay?” Scout snapped, glaring hard at the desert outside the window. “I got my arm broken in a stupid bar because the guys got annoyed and ditched me and I was up until like four in the morning getting my arm set and put in a cast and then I had to sleep on a shitty bench in a hospital waiting room and then Miss P sent the one person on the planet who hates me more than anyone else to pick me up. I’m not fuckin’ doin’ this right now, okay? Just lay off.”

Silence. Thank god for the radio, or he would’ve suffocated in it.

“Surely I’m not the person who hates you the most in the world,” Spy said after a few moments. “There are nine men being paid to kill you on a daily basis. I’m sure they hate you much more than I do.”

Scout didn’t reply to that.

“And I’m sure none of them would have pulled over to let you get something to eat,” he added.

“Yeah, holy shit, your Peace Prize is in the mail,” Scout huffed.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Scout snapped, finally looking over at him. Spy couldn’t hold eye contact for long, needing to watch the road. “What was that _supposed_ to mean?”

Spy sighed hard, looking extremely irritated. “It means that have you ever considered that perhaps the team worries when someone goes missing? And that occasionally your teammates might worry about you?”

“How was I supposed to know? Usually teammates are supposed to be _nice,_” Scout sassed, echoing Spy’s earlier joke.

He watched Spy take a measured inhale, a controlled exhale. When he spoke a long few seconds later, his voice was level. “Fine,” he said. “Alright. You’ve made your point.”

Scout just turned to look back out the window.

“…And I’m sorry we left you alone at the bar.”

His head whipped back around, eyebrows furrowed. Spy wasn’t looking at him.

“And I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier, and thank you for also getting me a sandwich when you didn’t need to,” Spy continued.

Scout waited a good few seconds for the catch, for the ‘gotcha’, for the punchline. For the part where Spy would twist the words around and hit him with something really biting once his guard was down. But nothing came. Just silence.

He needed a long moment to figure out how to reply. “…Thanks,” was all he could manage, and he knew it was lame, but Spy just shrugged and made no further comment.

Minutes of silence. Scout looked out the windshield, picked at his cast. “Punch buggy,” he quipped a few minutes later, slugging Spy on the shoulder with his good hand, and Spy made an appropriate sound of disgust and annoyance and offhandedly threatened to make him walk the rest of the way, but Scout just laughed.


	62. Engineer/Spy, Blustering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[chmkysii asked: Hi!! I love your work sm dude! QwQ Your Running Blind series is legitmately incredible! (It had me crying hadhs) I always get super excited whenever you talk about it or update it, Taking Shots is so creative and funny and sweet just AAGH I love it so much- It is probably my favourite fanfic in this entire fandom. If you are at all taking requests, I would like to ask if you could do an EngieSpy fic with Spy knowing exactly how to get Engie all flustered cus I think that would be cute -w- Ty!
> 
> ahgfdsj don’t mind that this took forever,,,, here’s some cheesy cheesy romance ft. a cheesy romantic
> 
> (no warnings)]]

Dell Conagher was a 45 year old man. He had more degrees than fingers (including the false ones) and a considerable amount of respect and acclaim in the wide majority of academic communities. And besides that, he made himself a formidable opponent in combat, taking no prisoners and becoming a tactical nightmare to deal with, able to push and direct in a way that others couldn’t do so effectively single-handedly.

So you’d think that there wasn’t much that would leave him flustered, but figures—there were people who could fluster bigshots like him just as much as there were people to fluster your average Joe. Maybe he should consider it a humbling experience, but he was plenty humble already.

What he hated was that it was so predictable of him, the things that made him blush. Nothing unusual—some of the other members of the team had initially assumed from his accent and general demeanor that surely he would balk and blush at more risqué jokes and shenanigans, but he could swear and chuckle just as much as the rest of them. And while he occasionally got fired up over things, he didn’t tend to get _hot_ when he got angry so much as stern and then very much cold.

No, what got him to stammer and make a damn fool of himself was just the thing that not many people had the guts to do to him over the course of his life—goopy, sappy, extremely romantic displays.

Just his luck that he’d fall for a Frenchman.

Part of what got him so flustered—and therefore more frustrated with himself—was the fact that he was smart enough to figure out that it probably took an awful lot of work to do the things Spy did for him. He didn’t know of a good florist in a hundred mile radius of their base, and Spy had ranted about it enough that he’d also gathered there were no particularly good wineries around either. And you probably had to take a _class_ to get as good as Spy at decoration and whatnot, surely, and cooking too. Setting a whole table and room and making a romantic dinner with wine older than his grandad with a whole bouquet as a centerpiece, well, it must’ve taken Spy all day, or, or maybe even _weeks_ of planning and plotting and scheming—

And he tried to dissuade Spy from going to all that trouble, every time he pulled off some stunt like that. Shook his head and called him a sentimental old fool. But it never made Spy’s grin budge, maybe because Spy could tell the comment reflected right back onto the Engineer too. And he didn’t let up.

Instead he walked straight up to the Engineer and took his right hand, bending at the waist and lifting his hand to lay a brief but meaningful kiss on his knuckles, and already Dell was flushing, even before Spy got to the verbal part of his greeting. “Hello, _mon cher Monsieur Conagher_,” he said, smirking a little.

“I can’t feel that, you know,” he reminded, keeping his voice level and glancing between his gloved hand and Spy’s face.

“Oh? I’d disagree,” Spy purred, and guided him a half step forward before kissing each knuckle in turn one more time in succession. “I’d say you must be feeling _something_, at least.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, brows furrowing just a touch.

“Why else would you be so red?” Spy teased, the slightest further uptick at the corner of his mouth, and the Engineer huffed, pulling back his hand and looking away.

“Hush, you,” he muttered, flustered, moreso as that just made Spy laugh.

“_Mon cher_, don’t tell me this makes you embarrassed,” Spy said, looking well amused by the idea.

“Well, you’re the one making a damn fool of the both of us, right where anyone on the team could see,” Dell pointed out.

Spy raised an eyebrow. “Is this your way of asking me to stop?” he asked.

“Well—yes! It is!” he said, even though a significant portion of him immediately protested.

“Understood,” Spy said, and the word was tailed by a little grin that told him he’d just gotten himself waist-deep in some new kind of trouble.

He waited for the kicker, when Spy did immediately stop with the showy displays of affection and admiration. The punchline ended up showing up relatively quickly in the form of a bouquet in a vase there on a workbench right in the middle of his workshop, unannounced and unprompted, without even a note. But he knew who it was from, even if he had no idea when Spy snuck past his security—or how long Spy had known _how_ to sneak past his security.

And after that first gift, he found others cropping up in similar fashions for a while—most often flowers, and occasionally wine, chocolate, other luxury goods he’d never buy for himself but couldn’t help but be delighted by when he received them as a gift, especially from his lover. They appeared occasionally in his workshop, or sometimes beside the coffee maker (presumably because he tended to be the first one there, the first one awake in the morning). And the one thing he could count himself being lucky about was the fact that Spy didn’t seem to be there to catch how it made him blush, every single time.

He tried to bring it up, when he and Spy were together, and Spy perfectly feigned ignorance and misunderstanding, as well as confusion and amusement. He stopped bringing it up, knowing it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

And then one day, for reasons he didn’t understand, the gifts shifted. He still got roses and flowers, usually just in time to replace the previous bouquet in the vase that had made a home in his workshop (although moved somewhere they would be less of a fire hazard). But less often did he get the wine and chocolates and similar classic romantic fare. Instead he found, occasionally, that he would glance up from his work in the workshop at the clock on the wall, and he would realize he’d worked straight through dinner again, and he’d curse his iron-clad focus for a moment before his eyes fell to the counter below the clock to land on a plate containing a full and well-rounded meal, covered in plastic so as to protect it from sawdust or similar mess.

He found that, suddenly and for reasons he couldn’t immediately explain, he tended to have leftovers waiting, labeled with his name, in the fridge despite him not having put them there. He found the shirt he’d discarded as a lost cause after a bad tear washed and stitched cleanly and sitting on top of his pile of clean laundry. He found a spare set of new laces just when he started to wonder if the ones in his boots needed replacing, and his supply of water bottles he kept near his station to stave off dehydration mysteriously never getting any emptier.

And for some reason that flustered him all the more, because flowers and wine and kisses on the back of the hand were nice, were a lovely display to think of and accomplish. But to be thinking of him so often, to notice such tiny details and to keep on top of them and to fix them—without even _saying_ anything, at that! To notice those things meant that Spy was thinking of him so much more than he expected, than he’d ever feel _right_ expecting, was more than he could ever ask from any partner and it just…

He found himself bringing it up one day, chest filled to the bursting and needing somewhere for it to go. He and Spy were sitting together in the smoking room, and Spy had some album playing—worn enough by then that Dell could just barely understand it well enough to parse out that it wasn’t English. Whatever it was, it was low and soothing and non-distracting and filled the room just as much as the warmth of the fire and the lingering smell of exotic spices from some point in the past.

Stronger was the smell of Spy’s cologne, though, there sat next to him, warm against his shoulder. He couldn’t tell much about what it was that Spy was reading, just that it looked to be a play of some kind based on the spacing of phrases, and that it was in Russian. He was sure his own reading was probably significantly less interesting, just being the order form for the next month’s shipment of parts that he needed to parse through.

Easy to get distracted from, was a way he could refer to it. Easy to stop thinking about it and to instead think about the man leaning against him.

“Spy?” he asked softly.

“Hm?” Spy hummed, looking up from his book.

“Why do you keep doing things for me?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Spy smirked.

“I’m being serious,” Dell said, voice still quiet.

Spy’s expression didn’t so much fall as it did relax. “Are you?” he asked. “Isn’t it obvious?”

When Dell just frowned, Spy deigned to elaborate.

“I do these things because I care about you, _mon cher_,” he said simply. “To make you happy, because I want you to be happy, because I care about you and you _deserve_ to be happy. If I’m not doing a good job, correct me so I can do better.”

“It’s not that,” he said quickly, and hesitated. “I just, I don’t understand—“

“—What, why I care? Why you deserve to be happy?” he asked outright, and maybe that was it. Maybe that really was all. And maybe it showed on his face. “Laborer, have you considered that your reluctance to accept my gifts and acts of appreciation are because you’re uncomfortable with the idea of someone holding you to such high value in such a real and tangible way?”

“I—I don’t—that’s—“ he stammered, face going red.

“That perhaps others caring about and valuing you has been either a distant dream or something you imagined to be a reality because you needed the morale to get through the day, and now your mind and emotions are significantly freed up and you don’t quite know what to do with yourself, which is something both new and intimidating for you, someone who always tries to be so in control of your own life?”

“Why the sudden psychoanalysis?” he managed, feeling more than a little bit tense.

“Because I have a feeling you intended for this conversation to be your asking me to not do things for you because you feel you don’t deserve them, and quite frankly I’m stubborn enough that you will never change my mind,” Spy said, and leaned in to kiss him, an ice pack on a sucker punch, startling and disorienting and…

And nice.

When Spy pulled back, he seemed to see the disorientation, and he smiled. “It’s alright that you don’t know what to do yet. It’s alright if you never know. I simply enjoy doing these things for you, as often as I can without treading on your toes or making you feel smothered.”

“You never do,” Dell assured with the part of his brain that was still functioning.

Spy kissed him on the cheek gently. “You are very sweet, Dell Conagher,” he said simply.

“Me? You’re the one who—“

“Shush,” Spy laughed, and gave him another peck. “Just accept that making you happy is what makes me happy, _oui?_ Is that such a strange thing to ask?”

“It feels like it,” Dell admitted.

“Well, perhaps the millionth time I say it, it won’t,” Spy teased.

“You’ll say that a million times?” he asked, incredulous.

“I’ll say it as many times as you’ll tolerate. I’ll say it on the hour every day until you get entirely tired of me or die, whichever comes first—or perhaps at the exact same moment. I’ll learn every language on the planet and say it in each and every one until you can repeat it back to me fluently. Because, _mon cher_, I mean it, and when I mean something, there isn’t a soul on the planet who can stop me from making it absolutely clear that I mean it, not even the person I love most in the world and his ridiculous, skewed lack of ego. Do you understand?”

The Engineer kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, and yeah, he understood. He really did. And maybe Spy was right—maybe he would believe it someday. Maybe someone that stubborn was the only type of person who could convince him.

Time would tell.


	63. Sniper/Scout, Shortie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[Anonymous asked: Sniper teases Scout about his height just a little too much and he gets genuinely upset over it and a little self conscious about his figure, at which point Sniper has to reassure him that 'no you have a great figure and being short is adorable and not a bad thing in the slightest'
> 
> camera cuts to me writing scout tf2 with RSD for i think the 800th time, just as feverishly as the previous 799
> 
> (warnings for body negativity)]]

He thought maybe something was wrong when he noticed Scout being much more quiet than usual even as the rest of the team continued to be rowdy. He thought that maybe something was wrong when Scout was one of the first to toss his cards onto the table and grab his beer to leave. He thought that maybe something was wrong when he ducked into the camper twenty minutes later and saw that Scout was already in bed, curled up and facing the wall.

“Bun?” Sniper asked, and that was when he became certain something was wrong, because Scout didn’t answer at all.

Silence for a few moments as Sniper tried to figure out what to do.

He sat on the edge of the little cot he called a bed, pulling free of his boots and hat and stripping off his button-up. Silence.

“You awright?” he asked more directly.

Scout made an ‘I dunno’ sort of noise. Sniper shifted.

“Feel like talking about it?” he offered.

Scout made another quieter ‘I dunno’ sort of noise, and yeah. Something was definitely wrong.

He stood to go get some semblance of pajamas on and returned not long later, a little relieved when Scout at least budged over to make room for him in bed. He hesitated for a few long moments before putting a tentative hand on Scout’s arm. After a moment Scout moved to pull the arm in question around his waist, and alright. That was a relief too in some ways, because at least Scout wasn’t angry at him, but also worrying because Scout tended to be pretty upset before he tried to be little spoon. Either he’d curl up facing Sniper or he’d insist on being big spoon, wanting to face away was generally a bad sign.

“It’s awright if you don’t want to talk about it,” Sniper said carefully after a few moments, soft against Scout’s hair, “but… if you do, I’ll listen. Promise.”

Quiet for a second. “I love you,” Scout mumbled, and nothing else.

“You too, bun,” he replied, and eventually Scout fell asleep, and he resolved to ask more questions in the morning.

Except Scout wasn’t there in the morning, he’d apparently managed to wriggle himself free without waking Sniper up and left to go somewhere else. And he couldn’t ask Scout any questions before the fighting started because all the blokes were around, and the closest thing to privacy he could hope to get before that night would end up being in the locker room at the end of the day.

And he didn’t even get that, which confused him plenty. Because usually Scout took his time, trying to wind down from battle a little bit. Would chat and goof around like plenty of the others, and always had to spend a good while in front of the mirror trying to get his hair back in some semblance of order.

But this time he showered in five minutes flat and just put his hat on without even drying off properly, out the door before Sniper could get himself together enough to follow after.

He ended up at Scout’s room, knocking on the door hesitantly. And there was a long few moments before Scout opened the door just enough to peek through, hair a bit of a mess, chest bare and visibly surprised to see him standing there.

“You busy?” Sniper asked.

“Uh, not really,” he said, and paused, and finally stepped back from the door, letting it swing open a short way.

Sniper stepped in and took note of how Scout moved away, picking up a towel next to where he had his mirror hung and holding it up near his chest, trying to get his hair in order. He seemed closed off. Nervous, almost. It was a far cry from his usual relaxed bravado, the general sort of ease he tended to move and stand with, the casualness. He seemed… he didn’t know what.

“You awright?” Sniper asked quietly, taking a seat on the edge of Scout’s bed and looking at him.

Scout hesitated. “I mean, yeah. Just… I dunno. Yeah,” he tried.

“Yeah?”

“I, I dunno,” Scout shrugged, and his hair seemed to be in order, but he kept messing with it. “I just, I… I dunno.”

Sniper stayed quiet and waited. Predictably, Scout continued talking a few moments later.

“I just kinda feel… weird. About some stuff,” he said haltingly. “Like… I don’t want you to be worrying about it.”

“Same to you,” Sniper replied easily. “But maybe talking will help.”

Scout hesitated. Hesitated. “…Maybe.”

A long pause. “Go on, then,” he urged gently.

Scout fidgeted with the towel. “I… I dunno. I guess I’ve just kinda been wondering if… if you like me.”

Sniper blinked. “I like you plenty,” he said, not sure what Scout meant.

“No, like—like, if you like _this_,” he said, gesturing up and down himself loosely with the hand not holding the towel. “Just—how I am, what I’m… _like_. Because, like, I dunno, I know I’m kind of a big dummy about pickin’ up on hints and stuff sometimes, and I figured, y’know, what if the jokes and stuff are you just sorta hinting that you aren’t into, like…”

He trailed off. Sniper’s expression largely conveyed confusion, he was sure, so eventually Scout managed to spit out the end of his sentence.

“…Guys like me,” he managed.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like—“ Scout tried, fought with his words. “Like, guys who are kinda short and all scrawny and weird, and the, the babyface thing and just, just being built the way I am, I know I’m not the biggest guy around or on the team or whatever but I just figured if you joke around about somethin’ like eighty times maybe it means you seriously have a problem, and it’s just that I can’t really… can’t really do shit about it but I guess if it’s—“

“You—wait, hold it,” Sniper cut in, surprised, “you—you think I’m being serious when I poke fun about that?”

Scout hesitated for a long moment before managing a jerky little nod.

“Scout, of course I—when I make those jokes, I’m not—“ he tried, stammering, shocked. He managed to wrestle his words into order long enough to get a sentence out. “How long have you thought I was serious?”

Scout shifted on his feet. “…A while,” he said hesitantly. “But… I dunno. You really laid into me the other day and then all the guys were laughin’ and I figured I’d have to be a pretty big idiot to think nothin’ was up. Like, if that was your way of hinting about it and I didn’t pick up on it by then, I’d seem pretty stupid. And I know I kinda _am_ stupid—“

“Scout,” Sniper cut in, brows furrowed together. “That’s not it. Really it’s not.”

Scout’s expression looked doubtful. Sniper continued talking, trying to be careful as he chose his words.

“I like the way you look, I like it a lot,” he insisted. “I make those jokes just to push your buttons a bit, it’s really nothing to be taken this seriously. If I knew it bothered you—“

“But like why wouldn’t you hate it?” Scout cut in suddenly, not quite looking him in the eye. “I’m way smaller than like any of the guys, and not as strong as them, and I just look like a goddamn stick figure and all, and I’m just—I’m, what’s there to _like_ about this?”

“Plenty,” Sniper insisted, and Scout just looked at the floor, doubt crossing his expression again. “Scout, _plenty_. I’m being serious. Right, look here—“

Scout tried to turn away, cutting him off. “Look, this doesn’t gotta be a whole thing—“ he tried.

“No, we’re talking about this,” Sniper insisted, taking the towel from Scout’s hand and setting it aside. The next thing he took was Scout’s face in his hands, looking him in the eye. “Hear me out.”

Scout went still and quiet, as expected. Sniper was silent for a few moments, thinking about how he wanted to phrase all of this.

“This, here,” he began, smoothing thumbs over Scout’s cheeks as an elaboration, “is comfortable. You’re just the right height for this. And for this,” he continued, leaning in to kiss Scout on the temple, “and for this,” he said, leaning in further to kiss Scout briefly on the lips, “and even more for this,” he said, pulling Scout into an embrace. “You’re just the right size for this. Feels right to hug you. You’re not too big or too small.”

“I’m all bony,” Scout protested under his breath.

“What’s wrong with that?” Sniper asked lightly. “Just a detail, same as what your hair does, same as where your freckles are. Wouldn’t change the fact that I like you.”

“You wouldn’t like me more if I was tall and built?” he tried, sounding disbelieving.

“I’d like you about the same,” Sniper shrugged. “Anything different would be something I still liked, because it’s you either way.” He paused. “Though, to be honest, if you were _too_ good-looking I’d never talk to you.”

Scout laughed a little.

“I’m serious! If you looked like some bloke from a magazine, I’d never get on with you, I’d be too busy being jealous or annoyed,” Sniper continued. “You’d be unbearable! I’d much rather be around _you_. A real person.”

“So it doesn’t bug you?” Scout asked, earnest, more vulnerable than Sniper expected.

“Not in the slightest. And s’nice sometimes.” He squeezed Scout harder for a moment before pulling back to look at him. “I like the way you are.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Scout seemed to consider that. “…Like, for real?”

“Why’s that so hard to believe?”

“I, I dunno. Just… I dunno. Maybe it’s just that _I_ don’t like it,” Scout mumbled, picking at his fingers.

“Well, that’s a different problem altogether,” Sniper shrugged.

Scout nodded absently. Seemed to think hard for a few seconds. Glanced up at Sniper. “Can I have another hug?” he asked, and Sniper obliged, and Scout squeezed him tight around the neck, leaning heavily against Sniper. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

“Anytime,” Sniper said.

“Not just the hug, the… the bein’ nice thing too.”

“Anytime,” Sniper said again.

It was silent for a long few moments before Sniper decided to cut Scout some slack and break it.

“Y’know one good thing about you being smaller like this?” he asked idly. Scout hummed in question. “Means I can do this.”

He shifted the hold around Scout’s waist and bodily lifted him up over his shoulder.

Scout was set to laughing in an instant, even as he loudly and feverishly began to protest such treatment. “Snipes! Put me down! Snipes put me down you can’t just do that—“

He continued to laugh protest all the way back to the camper, where they stayed for the rest of the night, Sniper deciding every other part of his day could wait—apparently he had a boyfriend who needed assuring.


	64. Sniper/Scout, Chin Tilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[Anonymous asked: your works: magnifique, perfectas. you wrote about scout melting when sniper tilts his chin up - would be great to read that ^-^
> 
> bit of a short one but this really is like my favorite bit. just this once sniper tf2 gets power
> 
> (no warnings)]]

“That’s bullshit!” Scout crowed, hands on his hips, glaring at the other two. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Listen here,” Engie said gently, patiently. “Firstly, I don’t appreciate that tone. Second, you and I both remember what happened _last time_ you decided to go out for a run right after a big storm like that.”

“If leg is broken again, Heavy will not be helping,” Heavy declared firmly.

“Either do laps around the halls or go use the workout room,” Engie said. “It’s just until tomorrow when the water’s settled, you’ll live.”

“No way!” Scout said, stubborn as ever. “I don’t gotta listen to you two anyway!”

He glanced over his shoulder at the door as it opened and closed, revealing Sniper, expression blank and hand wrapped around a mug.

“Look! _Snipes_ was just outside, how come _I_ can’t go?” he asked sharply, gesturing for emphasis.

“Stretch probably wasn’t runnin’ fast enough to skid a half a dozen meters and off the side of a ledge,” Engie pointed out.

“What’s going on?” Sniper asked, tone dull.

“Little man is upset that he cannot run outside,” Heavy replied, also flatly.

“Because it’s bullshit! That was just one time, and I totally learned my lesson, and believe it or not, Hardhat, you’re not my mom and you don’t get to tell me what to do!”

Sniper was apparently done surveying the situation. He started walking towards Scout, pulling off his shades and hanging them on his shirt.

Scout, back to facing the other two, didn’t notice, and continued ranting. “I’m goin’ out there whether you guys like it or not, okay? And I’m not gonna change my mind no matter how much—“

He was cut off by Sniper reaching an arm around him and taking him by the chin, turning his face around and up with a firm but smooth motion. When he stopped, their faces were inches apart. Scout blinked, surprised and stunned.

“Uh,” Scout managed after a second, voice a little squeaky.

“Ought to stay inside,” Sniper mumbled.

“Uh… yeah, uh, okay,” Scout agreed distractedly, eyes flicking between different parts of Sniper’s face, voice quiet.

“Don’t want you twisting an ankle, do we?” Sniper continued easily, voice a murmur. “Be a real problem in battle. Need you too much for that.”

“No, yeah, don’t… want that,” Scout breathed, blinking, nodding the small amount he was able.

“Glad we agree,” Sniper hummed, and released his chin to give him a pat on the cheek before continuing on his way, taking a gulp from his cup.

Scout stood there stunned silent and still for a good few seconds before he blinked, reorienting himself, realization starting to crowd into view. “No, wait, hey!” he called, but Sniper was already gone.

Silence. Heavy had an eyebrow raised, and Engie seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh. Scout’s face was red.

“Fuck you guys,” Scout muttered, stalking off away from the door and back towards his room.


	65. Pauling&Team, Pride Month

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[Anonymous asked: hey since its pride month, may i request some gay mercs just having a good time? doesn't have to be any ship in particular, it'd just be nice to see them all get to celebrate :D thanks and happy pride!!!
> 
> this spiraled into me just writing my headcanons for all the mercs but also i am in fact so behind on requests that i had to push this one up in the order to have it even come out during pride month so yeah
> 
> also everyone is trans except pyro who’s double trans don’t @ me
> 
> (warnings for vague reference to the concept of homophobia)]]

It was an hour and a half into a team debriefing, almost two hours after Miss Pauling had arrived and about an hour and fifty minutes after Scout had _started_ his usual general flirtiness, that finally it happened. Finally, the straw to break the camel’s back was placed. Finally Miss Pauling reached her limit.

“Scout, oh my god, I’m _gay_,” Miss Pauling snapped, and the room fell quiet.

Across a whole table from her, Scout blinked. Blinked again. Blinked a third time. Glances were exchanged between teammates.

“Aw, man,” Scout finally said quietly, and there was a pause of roughly three seconds before he gasped and sat up straight. “Wait so you like girls?” he asked quickly.

“Uh,” Miss Pauling said, hesitated, confused by the sudden shift of tone. “Yeah, basically.”

“Miss P can we please go hang out at some point and please can I wingman for you?” Scout asked all in a rush. Before she could even process that he was already defending the idea. “Seriously, I kick ass as a wingman! Look, like a third of the girls I usually hit on end up not bein’ into dudes anyways, I find a cool girl who likes girls I can send ‘em your way, y’know? It’ll be awesome! Seriously!”

“You’re—wow, you already moved past it?” Miss Pauling asked, surprised. “Like, no follow up questions?”

“I mean, _should_ I ask more?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowing a little.

“No, I just thought you’d probably have more to say to that,” Miss Pauling said, blinking a few times herself. “About the liking girls thing.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, no, that’s—that’s cool, no worries. We’re cool,” Scout shrugged, gesturing around the table. “Shit, did you think we were gonna be assholes about it?”

“Uh,” Miss Pauling said, not sure how to answer that.

“I told you,” Spy muttered from his place relatively close to her around the table, and she shot him a glare. “The job offers tend to reach people from the fringes of society, Miss Pauling. What other crowds might they attract?”

“Okay, so I knew about Spy and Medic—“

“How?” Medic asked, looking a little surprised. “Herr Spy is obvious—“ Spy raised an eyebrow but said nothing in protest, “—but how me?”

“Is easy to tell,” Heavy mumbled, and was elbowed for his trouble. “Does not help that Doktor is never interested in fancy women at fancy business party.”

“Yeah, mostly that,” Miss Pauling agreed. “Wait, you too, Scout?”

“Sure, I mean, guys are great, girls are great, so why not, right?” Scout shrugged.

“Okay, wait, who else, then?” Miss Pauling asked, baffled.

A general consensus around the table of affirmation, lightly seasoned with a few see-saw hand motions and vague head tilts.

“_Seriously?!_ Okay, no, okay, we’re doing a roll call,” Miss Pauling said firmly. “Medic already went.”

“_Ja,_” Medic agreed.

“Heavy?”

“Men are most good, but if partner is capable and intelligent, it does not matter,” Heavy said sagely. “Heart is most important.”

“Pyro?”

A series of noises muffled almost entirely by their mask and wide gestures. Miss Pauling nodded in faux-understanding once those died down.

“Uh huh. Scout already went too—“

“I mean, I can go again,” Scout offered.

“Engie?” Miss Pauling asked, ignoring him.

He shrugged a little bashfully, adjusting his helmet. “Well, not so much interested in dating just now with work and all, but… suppose it don’t much matter whether I end up with the kids and picket fence, ‘long as whoever I end up catchin’ is nice and all.”

“Demo?”

Demo considered for a second. “Eh,” he decided on.

“Eh?” Miss Pauling asked, a little confused.

“Eh,” Demo nodded. “Bloody, what’s it matter? Datin’ and all that lark, nice in theory, nasty business in practice. Rather just keep it me and a few mates and all.”

Soldier gave him a high-five of solidarity from one side. Demo accepted enthusiastically. “Affirmative!” Soldier barked.

“Okay. Spy, did you go?”

“I can make myself look like anyone on the planet. Gender and orientation are meaningless, as are labels,” Spy deadpanned.

“Got it. Sniper?”

He shrugged loosely after a second. “Blokes,” he mumbled.

A pause. “Blokes?” Miss Pauling repeated awkwardly.

“Blokes,” Sniper agreed.

“That’s… fair,” she said. “Sheesh, what are the odds?”

“Less slim than you’d assume,” Spy hummed.

“Is that a yes to the wingman thing?” Scout prompted, undeterred.

“I, um… I actually… have something going on this weekend,” Miss Pauling said slowly.

“Oh, yeah, work huh?” Scout asked, looking just a little put out, sympathetic.

“I’m actually going to be in this one town for a little while since I’m around on business, and most of my evening is probably going to be free, so… I’m, um. I’ll be meeting someone,” she said carefully.

“Oh my god tell me more,” Scout insisted, leaning forward, chin on his hands. She went to deny that and to try to get the meeting back on track, but similar looks of interest seemed to be on the faces of most of the others around the table, so instead she was forced to sigh and relent.

“She’s really pretty,” she started in, and the meeting didn’t get back on track for almost an hour.

**Author's Note:**

> [[im on tumblr under the same username]]


End file.
